This column was published in Ophthalmology Management in February 1991. TECHNOLOGY UPDATE Irving J. Arons Ophthalmic Consulting Group Arthur D. Little Five or six years ago, Rob Webb of the Eye Research Institute in Boston ( now the Retina Institute), invited me in to see a demonstration of a new device that he and others at the ERI had invented. It was the scanning laser ophthalmoscope. I can clearly recall the room full of instrumentation -- the large optical bench spilling over with beam splitters, mirrors, lenses and lasers -- and the TV monitor across the room from the slit lamp stand. Rob, his eyes dilated for the demonstration, sat down at the slit lamp and eased his chin into the support and we all watched in awe as first his cornea, and than other eye structures were clearly visible on the TV monitor as his eye approached the slit lamp objective. Finally, his retina was in full view, magnified on the screen, and by manipulation of a joy stick, could be panned. This was my firs...