History
The origin and history of ‘The International Pupil Colloquium’
Notes and personal memories by Prof. Stanley Thompson, Iowa City written for the occasion of the 29th Pupil Colloquium:
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In 1961 Larry Stark was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Norbert Wiener’s division. (Wiener was the famous child prodigy who earned a PhD from Harvard at age 18. He had spent most of his career at MIT in applied mathematics. He was the one who developed much of the theory that supports cybernetics, robotics, computer control and automation.) Larry Stark was junior faculty at MIT, and he and his students were applying mathematical analysis to human servo-mechanisms, trying to express various physiological reflexes in mathematical terms, so, of course, pupillary reactions were obvious candidates for study.
In 1961 Stark realized that the pupil experts Lowenstein and Loewenfeld were in New York, and it might help to “talk pupils” with them. So he called New York and invited them to Boston: “I’m putting on this meeting about the pupil, you gotta come !”. The meeting was short. Some graduate students presented papers that, I suspect, were not easy for Lowenstein and Loewenfeld to follow.
At mid-day Larry showed that he knew how to keep meeting expenses down. He said “The cafeteria is down the hall to your right. See you back here in 90 minutes.” There were some more papers in the afternoon, and that was the end of the meeting. Larry was very keen on doing it again next year, but L & L were reluctant. However, in 1962, they did go to Boston again at Larry’s invitation, and they presented a paper, and their fellow Richard Feinberg went along, and he also presented a paper.
At this point Loewenfeld realized that she could easily organize a Pupil Meeting herself, at Columbia in New York, and it would be a much more interesting meeting because she would invite people who would offer physiological papers and clinical papers. She did this the next year (1963) and I presented a paper at that meeting, because I was a fellow with Lowenstein and Loewenfeld that year. When the meeting was over she decided that she couldn’t face doing it all over again next year, so she planned to do it again two years later in 1965, and it would be in Washington DC, and Dick Feinberg would be the host.
This decision set the pattern of holding the meeting every other year in odd years.
In 1983 the meeting was held in Toronto, Canada and I was trying to get a brief summary of each meeting published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology. It was in one of these AJO reports that I called the meeting “The Pupil Colloquium”, and the name stuck.
The next meeting, in 1985, was hosted by Terry Cox in Vancouver, and at the last minute there was a major US airline strike. Dr Loewenfeld couldn’t get out of New York. There were only about 12 of us in the audience. The Japanese members had no problem flying from Tokyo to Vancouver. We had lots of time for discussion, and Dr Suzuki did some continuous translating. It was a useful and gratifying meeting.
The following year (1986) the International Neuro-Ophthalmology Society held their meeting in Japan, and Dr Satoshi Ishikawa, the host, wanted more American neuro-ophthalmologists to know about the Pupil Colloquium; so he hosted a separate Pupil Colloquium in the town of Hamamatsu in the days following the INOS meeting. In 1987 the meeting was again held at Columbia University in New York, with Myles Behrens and Jeff Odel hosting. The next year, 1988, (an even year again) there was another mega-conference of neuro-ophthalmic societies, so the Pupil Colloquium joined in. In 1989 we went back to odd years, and Larry Stark was the host in Berkeley, California. One month later the Bay Bridge collapsed in an earthquake.
You will have noticed that there were two small meetings at the beginning of the series that were hosted by Larry Stark in Boston, and that also, on two occasions, in an even year, (1986 and 1988) an extra meeting was thrown into the series. It was these four extra meetings of the group during the last 50 years that brought the total number of meetings up to 29.
Stan Thompson, July 2011
The Previous Meetings (with comments by Prof. Stanley Thompson)
1st MIT, Boston, 1961
Larry Stark
2nd MIT, Boston, 1962
Larry Stark
3rd Columbia P&S, New York, 1963
Otto Lowenstein, Irene Loewenfeld (decision made by L&L to continue this get-together, and to meet once every other year, on odd years)
4th Washington. DC, 1965
Richard Feinberg
5th Philadelphia, 1967
Alan Laties
6th Bethesda, MD 1969
Henry Wagner
7th Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, 1971
Ted Martens
8th Detroit, 1973
Irene Loewenfeld
9th Iowa City, 1975
Stan Thompson
10th Flushing, NY, 1977
Gad Hakerem (Psychologist)
11th London, 1979
Stephen Smith & Paul Turner (Clinical Pharmacologists)
12th Winnipeg, 1981
Michel Pierre Janisse (Psychologist)
13th Toronto, 1983
Jan Czarnecki (At about this time the meeting was first called “The Pupil Colloquium”)
14th Vancouver, 1985
Terry Cox (Attendance was poor - due to air strike. More time for each talk. Translation by Dr Susuki. Good discussion.)
15th Hamamatsu, 1986
Satoshi Ishikawa (associated with INOS meeting in Tokyo)
16th Columbia P&S, New York, 1987
Myles Behrens, Jeffery Odel
17th Vancouver, 1988
Terry Cox, Stan Thompson (an extra meeting in even year. It was part of a mega-conference of neuro-ophthalmic societies)
18th Berkeley, 1989
Larry Stark, Glenn Myers (One month later the Bay Bridge collapsed in an earthquake!)
19th Woods Hole, 1991
Irene Loewenfeld
20th Iowa City, 1993
Stan Thompson, Randy Kardon
21st Tübingen (Schloss Haigerloch), 1995
Helmut Wilhelm, Barbara Wilhelm
22nd Birmingham, AL, USA 1997
Gamlin (Loewenfeld Lecture proposed)
23rd Nottingham, UK, 1999
Szabadi, Howarth
Merlin Larson, Peter Howarth
Bitsios, Peter Howarth
26th Bear Mountain, NY, 2005
Harry Wyatt, Michael Rosenberg
Hitoshi Ishikawa and Satoshi Ishikawa
Stuart Steinhauer
Helmut Wilhelm, Barbara Wilhelm