NSU Horizons Fall 2011

Some of the pieces include an early phorometer from the late 1800s used by optometrists for eye exams, which looks strikingly similar to the modern version. A drum microscope from 1900 provides a closer look at a patient’s black and white exam photos. There’s also a brown wooden box containing everything a dentist from the 1940s would need to make anterior acrylic teeth. Recent NSU College of Optometry alumnus Alfonso Puzzo was particularly interested in viewing the optometric items. These include eyeglasses from the first apothecary in the Washington, D.C., neighbor- hood of Georgetown, when America was still a British colony. There also are trial frame glasses from 1918, an American Optical Company stand from the 1940s, and a lensometer from the early 1900s that was used to verify the correct prescription for eyeglasses. “It’s interesting to see where optometry started,” said Puzzo, who first saw the museum before his admissions interview for the College of Optometry. “The museum got me more excited about the college.” It makes Alan Malachowsky, one of the museum’s most generous donors, happy that young people like Puzzo are influenced by the museum. A retired New York pharmacist who now lives in Florida, he has given the museum a plethora of items, which he collected from flea markets, old drug stores, and hospitals. “It’s a beautiful museum that helps educate people,” said Malachowsky, R.Ph., M.S., Ph.D. “How many young students have ever seen a battlefield surgical kit?” 21 horizons Genothalmic refractor (late 1800s), donated by the NSU College of Optometry Henry Troemner Philadelphia No. 5 gram scale with calibration weights (circa 1920), on loan from H. John Baldwin, Ph.D. Physician’s medicine bag (circa 1920), donated by Berry Blumenthal, D. O. From left to right: Laudanum (opium tincture) cobalt blue poison warning bottle (1892), donated by Salerno; Hobson’s Anti Skeeter (circa 1920), donated by Paul Magalian, R.Ph., Ph.D.; genuine water from History’s Famous Fountain of Youth, St. Augustine, Florida (circa 1950), donated by Magalian