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Show Journal of Neuro- Ophthalmology 14( 1): 58- 59, 1994. © 1994 Raven Press, Ltd., New York Eulogy for Dr. David Cogan David Cogan was a world renowned ophthalmologist whose lasting legacy is the subspecialty of neuro- ophthalmology. His 1966 text Neurology of the Visual System was the founding contribution to the field. His honors included awards from the Association for Research in Vision, the American Ophthal-mological Society, the International Council of Ophthalmology, the American Medical Association and the National Institutes of Health. His integrity was the key to his success and to the enduring regard so many people felt for him. He touched many lives in many different ways. For me as I mark out my own life in terms of memorable meetings, so I mark out the beginning of an era with Dr. Cogan. July 4, 1967 is an unforgettable day in my calendar. I came to Boston and Dr. Cogan met me at Logan. I was to be, he said, his first Fellow who was also a neurologist. He then drove twice round the rotary and I was convinced that he was reconsidering his decision and taking me back to the plane. He did not- and I was lucky, very lucky. I had the rarest pleasure of feeling welcome. It lasted for all of the years that I worked with him, first as his Fellow and then as his colleague. David Cogan's motivation for a career in ophthalmology, he once said, came from his ophthalmologist mother. It was her dedication to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary that made him too want to serve there. He did his ophthalmic residency at the Eye and Ear and in 1940 when his predecessor, Dr. Verhoff retired David Cogan, then aged 32, became Director of the Howe Lab. He held this appointment until 1973, and during that time he was Chief of the Department of Ophthalmology for six years. He left Harvard, not to retire, but to serve at the National Institutes of Health where he was Chief of Neuro- ophthalmology at the National Eye Institute from 1974 to 1985 and he continued as Scientist Emeritus until his death. Dr. Cogan, according to his daughter, Cilia, was in love with the eye. " He had an incredible aesthetic appreciation of its beauty she said, he saw it as a true work of art- a crystal to turn and look at, to see all of its facets." Dr. Cogan's formidable gifts were nowhere so evident as in clinical observation. He left us, among much else, with Cogan's myasthenic lid twitch sign, spastic conjugate deviation of the eyes on forced eye closure to the side of a hemiparesis, and impaired optokinetic nystagmus with the drum rotated to the side of a parietal lesion. The simplicity of his style and his extraordinary honesty were the hallmarks of everything he achieved. He was never afraid to say: I really don't know the answer. I don't believe I've seen this before. I'm sorry I have seen only a few cases of this. It was a style contrary to the prevailing fashion. It still is. He was a man who paced himself. He never came into the hospital until 10 a. m. and it was sometime before I learned from Did that he regularly got up early to write before breakfast. He published over 500 papers and several books and yet, he was a very modest man with a wonderful sense of humor. I remember once at our annual post- graduate course presenting a case and turning the discussion over to him saying " Dr. Cogan has written extensively about this condition, Dr. EULOGY FOR DR. DAVID COGAN 59 Cogan will you comment"? And, he replied, " Shirley it is so difficult to keep up with the literature." His long and distinguished career is best summed up by the 1985 David Cogan Library dedication at the National Eye Institute which reads: So great have been Dr. Cogan's achievements in all three areas- research, patient care and educa-tion- that he, more than anyone else, is credited with transforming the field of ophthalmology from a branch of surgery into a medical specialty at the forefront of science. Shirley H. Wray to the American Neurological Association October 18, 1993 J Ncuro- Ophthalmol, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1994 |