[The world of the eye of Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling (1740-1817)].

Physiotheology, which was a powerful stimulus to European intellectual life in the 17th and 18th centuries, may also have been responsible for an upsurge of interest in ophthalmology, and in particular cataract surgery. The eye was an object of special interest to the world of those times. Notions such as vision and observation, light, enlightenment, and elucidation were understood as holistic processes. The work of Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling (1740-1817), the "Oculist of the Age of Goethe", is also a world of the eye and of light. He regarded the eye as a metaphysical organ. In addition to his teaching activities--from 1778 to 1803 he was Professor of Economics, Public Finances and Political Science--Jung-Stilling remained a well-known oculist and an outstanding cataract surgeon to the end of his life. However, he won fame above all as a writer of popular literature and tracts, thus exercising a great influence on the revivalist movement at the end of the 18th century. In his writings there are numerous pointers to the interlinking of medical treatment and spiritual guidance in his ophthalmological work.