Georg Bartisch News Today

Anywhere you stand on West Campus you’re surrounded by what novelist Aldous Huxley called “the most successful essay in neo-Gothic that I know.” Gargoyles and grotesques, broad lawns surrounded by stone walls, bells ringing as the sun sets. And OK, calling the look medieval may be a stretch, but Duke definitely feels a bit like a placeout of time.

Georg Bartisch (1535–1607) was a German physician, a native of Königsbrück, Saxonia, who became, in the words of the University of Texas, ‘the father of ophthalmology’. He began his medical career as just 13, working as an apprentice to a barber surgeon. This was followed by two additional appren