Casey Albert Wood

Casey Albert Wood (November 21, 1856 – January 26, 1942) was an American ophthalmologist and comparative zoologist who studied aspects of animal vision especially those of birds. He collected books on birds and zoology and helped establish the Blacker-Wood collection of ornithology at the McGill University Library.

Wood was born in Wellington, Ontario and studied at local schools before graduating from the Ottawa Collegiate Institute in 1874. He obtained a master of surgery and doctor of medicine (MD CM) from the University Bishop's College in 1877 and a doctor of civil law in 1903. In 1905 the Bishops Medical School was absorbed by the [McGill University] Faculty of Medicine and graduates were able to obtain ad eundnem McGill MD CM degrees: Wood was awarded one in 1906.^[1] He served as a clinical clerk under William Osler at the Montreal General Hospital while a medical student, beginning a life-long friendship which included their shared interest in book collecting. By 1886, Casey Wood had decided to make Ophthalmology and Otology his specialty, beginning further studies in New York followed by study in Europe. In 1889, he settled in Chicago where he practiced, taught and published extensively.^[2]

Wood worked as a professor of ophthalmology at the Chicago Post-Graduate Medical School and the Northwestern University. In 1917 he joined the army and rose to the rank of Lt. Col during the First World War, serving with Colonel Fielding Garrison. He retired as a colonel. After the war, Wood studied the eyes of birds and reptiles in British Guyana and travelled later across the world including Kashmir and Sri Lanka. He published a work on The Fundus Oculi of Birds (1917). He then lived in the Vatican where he studied foreign language works on ophthalmology producing a translation of Benvenutus Grassus on the eye. Among his other works is a bibliographic compilation on vertebrate zoology.^[3]^[4]

Wood married Emma Shearer in 1886.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b Brawley, Frank (1942). "Obituary: Casey Albert Wood, M.D. 1856-1942". Arch. Ophthalmol. 27 (4): 779–781. doi:10.1001/archopht.1942.00880040155016.
^ "Wood, Casey A. (Casey Albert), 1856-1942 - Library Archival Catalogue". archivalcollections.library.mcgill.ca. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
^ "Casey Wood's 'Introduction to the Literature of Vertebrate Zoology' an Introduction to the Literature of Vertebrate Zoology Based Chiefly on the Titles in the Blacker Library of Zoology, the Emma Shearer Wood Library of Ornithology, the Bibliotheca Osleriana and Other Libraries of Mc Gill University, Montreal Casey A. Wood". The Auk. 49: 114. 1932. doi:10.2307/4076759. JSTOR 4076759.
^ "Dr. Casey Wood". British Journal of Ophthalmology. 26 (6): 287. 1942. doi:10.1136/bjo.26.6.287.