Hjalmar August Schiøtz

Who was Hjalmar August Schiøtz?

Hjalmar August Schiøtz was a Norwegian ophthalmologist born in Stavanger.

In 1877 he received his medical degree in Kristiania, later studying ophthalmology in Vienna, where he befriended Ernst Fuchs, and in Paris, where he was employed as "directeur adjoint" in the ophthalmology laboratory at the Sorbonne. In 1884 he became head of a polyclinic for ear, nose, throat and eye diseases in Kristiania. Beginning in 1901 he worked solely as an ophthalmologist.

Schiøtz is credited as being Norway's first professor of ophthalmology. He was also a skilled technician and mathematician. While in Paris, he invented a keratometer with Dr. Louis Émile Javal that was to become known as the Javal-Schiøtz ophthalmometer, an optical instrument used to measure the curvature of the anterior corneal surface. He presented an early version of the instrument at the international congress of eye specialists in Milan, and demonstrated the finished product at the international medical congress in London.

In 1905 Schiøtz invented the "Schiøtz tonometer", which is an indentation tonometer used to measure intraocular pressure.