William Briggs

William Briggs, M.D., born at Norwich, County of Norfolk, England, was an English physician and oculist. Following schooling at Norwich School he was entered at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, at age thirteen, under Thomas Tenison. He became a fellow of his college in 1668, and graduated M.A. in 1670. After some years spent in tuition and in studying medicine, he went to France and attended the lectures of Raymond Vieussens at Montpellier. To him Briggs dedicated his *Ophthalmographia*, an anatomical description of the eye, published at Cambridge in 1676, on his return from France. He proceeded M.D. at Cambridge in 1677, and was elected a fellow of the London College of Physicians in 1682. In the latter year the first part of his *Theory of Vision* was published by Robert Hooke; the second part was published in the *Philosophical Transactions* in 1683. The *Theory of Vision* was translated into Latin, and published in 1685 by desire of Sir Isaac Newton, who wrote a commendatory preface to it, acknowledging the benefit he had derived from Briggs's anatomical skill and knowledge. One point in Briggs's account of the eye is noteworthy, that being his recognition of the retina as an expansion in which the fibres of the optic nerve are spread out. Briggs practised with great success in London, especially in diseases of the eye; was physician to St. Thomas's Hospital 1682–9, physician in ordinary to William III of England from 1696, and censor of the College of Physicians in 1685, 1686, 1692. Source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Briggs_(physician)