Science and Medicine
Couching is the earliest documented form of cataract surgery. It involves dislodging the lens of the eye, thus removing the cloudiness caused by the cataract, resulting in aphakia. Couching was a precursor to modern cataract surgery and pars plana vitrectomy.
Benjamin Smith Barton.
George Soper.
Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.