The Ophthalmologist’s Time Machine: Chapter 29

Most ophthalmologists in the US recognize the name Bascom Palmer but few are familiar with the individual for whom the eye institute is named (1).

Bascom Headen Palmer, Jr., MD (1889-1954) was born in Lake City, FL, the younger son of a state legislator. Palmer graduated from what was then called the College of Medicine of the Tulane University of Louisiana (now the Tulane University School of Medicine) in 1914, and was class president. He completed a two-year internship at Touro Infirmary in 1916, followed by military service as a medical officer during World War I. After the war, Palmer earned a certificate in post-graduate study in ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1923, which appears to be the only formal ophthalmology training he ever received, and then moved to Miami.

Palmer arrived in Miami at a fortuitous time, just before the peak of a real estate boom. He opened a private ophthalmology and otorhinolaryngology practice and became chief of both specialties at Jackson Memorial Hospital. He is credited with performing the first cornea transplant in Florida. He became president of the Florida Society of Ophthalmology in 1948.

In addition to his clinical efforts, he attained leadership positions in two new organizations in the city: the University of Miami, founded in 1925 (2,3), and the Florida Association of Workers for the Blind (now the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired), founded in 1930 (4). During his career, Palmer advocated for two goals: to create a medical school at the university and to found an eye clinic to provide clinical care and research. He lived long enough to see the first goal achieved.

Palmer became a trustee of the University of Miami in 1938 and chaired the medical school committee. His efforts led to the founding of the University of Miami School of Medicine (now called the Miller School of Medicine) in 1952 as the first in the state, four years before the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville.

Palmer joined the board of the Miami Lighthouse in 1936, began discussing the foundation of an eye clinic in 1943, and was elected board president in 1947. In 1948, the Miami Lighthouse purchased land on N.W. 17th Street, across from Jackson Memorial Hospital. Palmer announced plans for an institute costing $500,000 (about $6.7 million in 2025 dollars) to be built on the site. He said, “We hope the institute will become a unit in a medical center second to none in the nation … It will be comparable to facilities in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.” The institute would be named the Ophthalmic Institute and Dieterich Clinic, named in honor of Dr. Frederick H. Dieterich, who donated $56,000 (about $750,000 in 2025 dollars) for this purpose. Relatively little is known about Dieterich, who appears to have been a pathologist. Unfortunately, efforts to build the Dieterich Clinic stalled after Palmer’s death in 1954.

The University of Miami division of ophthalmology, within the department of surgery, was established in 1955 and was led by Kenneth Whitmer, then by John McKenna. In 1958, Edward W.D. Norton was appointed the first full-time division chief, and in 1959, ophthalmology achieved full departmental status, over the protests of the department of surgery.

In 1959, the Miami Lighthouse proposed to donate $200,000 (about $2.2 million in 2025 dollars) “to construct an Eye Institute named in honor of Dr. Bascom Palmer.” Norton began negotiations with the Miami Lighthouse and with Dade County. In 1960, the Miami Lighthouse contributed $305,000 (about $3.3 million in 2024 dollars). The original Bascom Palmer Eye Institute opened in 1962 at 1638 NW 10th Avenue, on land owned by Dade County. The current institute, opened in 1976, was built on the 17th Street site originally purchased by the Miami Lighthouse, under Palmer’s leadership, in 1948.