This book is intended for the medical student and non-specialist postgraduate. It is being published at a time when hospital waiting lists for eye care in Great Britain have reached record levels and the need for more teaching at medical student level is becoming imperative. In many medical schools the students have very little exposure to the specialty; some students none at all. This may be because in past years the emphasis has been on teaching ophthalmology at a postgraduate level and a considerable development of postgraduate teaching has occurred. It had been inferred that more exposure of qualified general practitioners to the subject would reduce the hospital waiting lists since more eye care would take place in general practice. It would appear that the reverse has taken place: general practitioners, being now more aware of eye problems, send even more cases to the hospitals. In the absence of an expansion of the hospital service there is an urgent need to improve primary care ophthalmology and this can best be done by placing more emphasis on the teaching of medical students. It is against this background that the need to provide a new basic textbook in ophthalmology arises. The book is, therefore, aimed primarily at the medical student. It does, however, aim to make preliminary reading for the postgraduate student
