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Gordon L. Ruskell: optometrist, teacher and anatomist

2005; Wiley; Volume: 206; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1469-7580.2005.00375.x

1469-7580

R.H. Douglas,

Ophthalmology and Visual Impairment Studies

Gordon Leonard Ruskell, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Optometry and Visual Science at City University, a classical antomist who made many fundamental discoveries in the field of ocular innervation and educated optometrists for almost 40 years, died on 3 March 2004, aged 73. He was born in June 1930, the second of three brothers separated in age by less than three years, in Brentford (West London). During the war years the brothers were evacuated first to Devon, where Gordon lived in the family of a blind cobbler, and then to Hampshire. Shortly before the end of the war, at the age of 14, his family moved to Gloucester, instilling in Gordon a lifelong interest in Gloucestershire County Cricket Club (he was a sports enthusiast). After National Service in the Army, Gordon took the relevant examinations and toyed with the idea of becoming either a civil servant or a banker. Knowing his attitude towards paperwork, this would have been a poor career move. Eventually he became a salesman for Norville Optical and through his contacts with opticians became convinced that a good living was to be made through a career in ophthalmic optics (optometry). Thus began his almost 50-year association with the Northampton College of Advanced Technology, which later became City University, London. As a result of earlier uncertainties in his career path, he joined the college relatively late in life aged 24, graduating with an Honours Diploma in Ophthalmic Optics in 1957. After a brief spell as a practising optometrist he moved to Ohio State University, researching (among other things) the vasculature of the rabbit eye and collaborating with Jack Prince on a classic book of the comparative ocular anatomy of domestic animals. Most significantly he also met Valerie, a British orthoptist attached to the university hospital, whom he married in 1960. In 1961 he returned to the UK and joined the staff at City University. His only daughter, Caroline, was born a year later. During these early years at City, despite the heavy teaching load of a junior academic, he worked towards his PhD at Guy's Medical School (London University) completing a thesis on ‘The orbital distribution of the pterygopalatine ganglion’ under the supervision of Roger Warwick in 1968. He was awarded a personal chair in Ocular Anatomy by City University in 1980 and retired in 1995. Yet such was his enthusiasm for his research that he continued to be seen in the department more than many ‘full-time’ members of staff. The way a scientist's success is usually measured is by the volume of peer-reviewed papers published, the number of postgraduate students supervised and the honours received. Using such traditional measures there is no doubt that Gordon was very successful. He published over 70 high-quality papers, contributed to many books, including Gray's Anatomy, and had a total of 20 successful postgraduate students. He was also awarded the research Medal of the British Optical Association (1967), a DSc from the University of London (1980), the Owen Aves Medal (1984), an honorary DSc honoris causa from the University of Waterloo in Canada (2000), and was granted Honorary Life Membership of the College of Optometrists. However, such simple facts do not come close to telling the whole story. In many ways Gordon's attitude towards science was an old-fashioned one, both in philosophy and in methodology. Much of modern-day science is performed within large groups and research is generally regarded as impossible, or at least undesirable, without major grant income. Gordon, however, throughout his career operated largely without major funding and, apart from a steady stream of graduate students, tended to work on his own, as is evidenced by the fact that for most of his publications he is the sole author. This, at least at the start of his career, was because biologically based research such as his simply was not done within UK optometry departments. Thus he had to rely largely on himself. Throughout his career, for example, he did all his own technical work, from mixing solutions and cleaning glassware to cutting sections. Equally cost-effective was his methodology, relying on ‘simple’ observation of either macroscopic dissections, or light and electron microscopic sections. In these days dominated by complex techniques such as molecular biology, I was continually amazed by how much could still be learnt by careful observation of meticulous dissections. One of Gordon's specialities was the tracing of nerve pathways to orbital structures. For this he continued to rely on the labour-intensive observation of Wallerian degeneration following the often technically very demanding intracranial lesioning of specific nerves, despite the availability of chemical tracers. Much of what Gordon discovered using these ‘simple’ techniques is now standard textbook knowledge. The key to his success was his remarkable manual dexterity, which enabled both very complex dissection and found expression is some amazing artwork. In an age when there is a tendency to maximize the number of papers by repeated publication of the smallest possible amount of data, Gordon's research output might today be regarded as modest. However, he would never go to press until he had the complete story, no matter how long it took. This attitude towards research and publication is exemplified by ‘his book’. When I joined the staff at City 20 years ago, he informed me he had just about finished a book on the human visual system. I have no doubt he said the same to those before me. The book is still not published. The reason for this is not that he did not work on it. He did, frequently. However, he was very reluctant to admit that something was not known and, rather than present an incomplete picture, would always try and find the answer through ‘doing that last experiment’. His number of publications would also have been much greater had he not insisted that his graduate students publish much of their work as sole authors. As academics, many things are asked of us; students want us to teach, administrators want us to administer, while all most research scientists such as Gordon want to do is research. It is not that Gordon neglected his teaching. He was in fact a very good and committed teacher. None of his students will ever forget his lectures, all given without notes, with fantastically complex diagrams emerging on the board, constructed with a piece of chalk in each hand. Gordon was a gifted and inspiring teacher from whom literally thousands of optometrists and ophthalmologists have benefited. Anatomy has never been a popular subject among students, yet Gordon was so knowledgeable and above all enthusiastic about the subject that he awakened an interest in anatomy within almost all whom he taught. Although Gordon was committed to teaching, I do not think he would argue if I said he was an ‘unenthusiastic’ administrator and that he would avoid it whenever possible. What mattered to Gordon was his science and he displayed an incredibly single-minded approach to his research. Whatever distractions students, fellow academics or administrators would try to put in his way, Gordon and his microscope were rarely parted. The reason for his seemingly unlimited enthusiasm is that he simply got a tremendous kick out of what he did. He got as much pleasure seeing something new down the microscope at 70 as he did when he was 30. You could positively feel the enthusiasm radiating from him. The simple joy of discovery never left him. Apart from high-quality research, the other thing Gordon did was to produce a long line of postgraduate students. To a large extent, 1a measure of the success of a supervisor is how many of his students stay in science and further education. Many of us have PhD students who for quite legitimate reasons leave science to pursue other careers soon after graduating. However, most of Gordon's students have gone on to be either top-class scientists or optometric educators, and often both. Thus Gordon's students now occupy senior academic positions within optometrynot only in the UK but as far afield as the USA, Canada, Norway, Denmark and South Africa. Few people can claim to have had such a wide influence on optometry all around the world. There was clearly something about him as a mentor that inspired people. Examples of Gordon's skills as an anatomist and artist. (a,b) Toluidine-blue-stained tangential sections of the primate retina at the level of (a) the photoreceptor inner segments showing the retinal ‘mosaic’, and (b) the inner nuclear layer highlighting the retinal capillaries. (c) Dissection of the anterior half of a human eye showing the posterior surfaces of the lens, iris, ciliary body (highlighting the ‘ridge-like’ ciliary processes), and ora serrata. (d) Schematic drawing showing the structures of a ciliary muscle fibre bundle and a junction with an adjacent bundle (the empty shaded areas contain loosely packed connective tissue fibres). C, capillary; F, fibroblast process (the lower F indicates fibroblasts of two adjoining bundles); In, intermediate junction; Li, lipofuscin granule; M, myofilaments attached to a dense body; Me, melanocyte; S, Schwann cell; T, axon terminal. (e) Dissection to show the two systems of parasympathetic nerves to the eye viewed from the lateral side. 1, short ciliary nerves; 2, ciliary ganglion; 3, nerve to inferior oblique; 4, infraorbital nerve; 5, palatine nerves; 6, pterygopalatine ganglion; 7, rami orbitalis; 8, vidian nerve. In the past decade Gordon enhanced his international profile by accepting a part-time professorship in the Department of Optometry and Visual Science at Buskerud University College, Norway. In collaboration with one of his former students (Richard Bruenech), he initiated and supervised research projects, significantly raising the academic profile of the institution. Largely through his participation in this work there is now a fully equipped anatomical laboratory at the University which recently received a grant of 5 million Norwegian kroners from the Norwegian research council. However, although 2Gordon was an inspiring teacher and a meticulous scientist, his greatest attribute was that he was simply a ‘nice man’. It would be very hard to find anybody who did not like him. Since he passed away I have had an overwhelming number of messages from past students and colleagues. 3One person nicely summed up what many expressed: ‘He was a brilliant researcher, scientist and teacher, but most of all he was a thoroughly good and decent human being.’ Gordon the teacher. One of his famed drawings is visible on the blackboard. Gordon the scientist. This is the pose most of us knew best. Life without this wise, but above all kind, man is going to be very strange and I cannot believe that we will no longer see him sitting in his corner of the lab surrounded by his jumble of things. We will miss him greatly. But his influence within 4optometry and the wider scientific community has been immense and through his work both as a scientist and as an educator, he will not be forgotten. But above all, those of us who knew him, will remember Gordon, the gentle man. Gordon in Norway with two of his last postgraduate students, Inga-Britt Kjellevold Haugen and Richard Bruenech. Above all I am grateful to Gordon's wife Valerie for supplying much of the background material on his early life. I know it was largely her doing that Gordon was such a contented man. Gary Baker and John Lawrenson commented on early drafts of the manuscript and many colleagues, including Dick Bruenech and Tony Cullen, supplied valuable information. Thanks also to Gordon's many former colleagues, students and friends who contacted me and gave me an insight into how other people felt about him. 1970 A. J. Phillips 1972 S. Macintosh 1973 A. Field 1975 N. Johnson 1975 J. H. Stewart-Jones 1976 J. P. Bergmanson 1977 R. W. Kemp 1979 H. Lim 1979 A. P. Cullen 1981 T. Griffiths 1982 J. Wilson 1988 P. Forrest 1988 O. Oduntan 1990 H. Bleshoy 1990 M. Travers 1991 J. Lawrenson 1996 P. Szczesny 1997 R. Bruenech 1998 S. Doshi 2001 I.-B. Kjellevold Haugen