In these days of self-evaluation in the field of continuing education for clinicians, an interesting exercise would be to assign to all Board-certified ophthalmologists the task of writing from memory each year a different chapter from the successive headings used in this book. Given a year to prepare each chapter, we might indeed succeed. Without preparation, although the material contained within these covers should be familiar to all, the results would be spotty and would, in most cases, fall far below the standard of the chapters in this fine text.
Fortunately for most of us, such a requirement is not yet the law of the land. Since the human computer has a way of sifting facts and concepts, we retain those that have become firmly embedded "im Fleisch und Blut" while relegating those that are seldom used to a depository from which they must be recalled with the help of