When One Eye Costs More Than Two: Ophthalmologists and Ocular Work Accidents in Argentina, 1920–30

During the second decade of the twentieth century ophthalmologists in Argentina began to take advantage of the vigorous demands of the workers movement to expand the scope of their specialty.  Young ophthalmologists insisted that in ocular work accidents only an ophthalmologist was capable of assessing the type of sight needed to perform particular jobs, the extent to which sight was lost as a result of a work accident, and the monetary value of the sight that was lost.  To this end, these young doctors began to publish complex case analyses in which they mathematically calculated the value of sight for specific industries, jobs, and/or workers.  In doing so they inadvertently aided the burgeoning political blind movement who were attempting to assert the importance of social services for the reeducation of adults blinded later in life.  Ophthalmologists who specialized in ocular work accidents provided the blind movement with an integral set of data to help persuade ambivalent politicians of the necessity of greater funding for institutions for the blind.