Hugo Magnus

Life & Legacy

Hugo Magnus (31 May 1842 in Neumarkt in Schlesien – 15 April 1907 in Breslau) was a German ophthalmologist and historian of medicine. He was of Jewish ancestry.
He studied medicine at the University of Breslau, where he was a pupil of Albrecht Theodor Middeldorpf and Hermann Lebert. In 1867 he received his medical doctorate, and in 1873 qualified as a lecturer in ophthalmology. In 1883 he became an associate professor at the University of Breslau.
He is remembered for his intensive studies of color blindness and color sense. He also conducted research of eye diseases; in 1874 he made an early observation of what would be later known as Von Hippel–Lindau syndrome, and in 1878 he provided an early clinical description of proptosis in infantile scurvy. He was the author of numerous works with history of medicine themes (including ophthalmology).