Casey Albert Wood

Wood was born in Wellington, Canada West to Orrin Cottier and Louisa (Leggo) Wood. His father was an eminent New York physician who traced his descent from Epenetus Wood who emigrated from Berkshire in 1717. Wood studied at Ottawa grammar school and spent a year at a French school in Grenville Quebec before assisting his father at his medicine practice. He graduated from the Ottawa Collegiate Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in 1874.

Wood married Emma Shearer in 1886.

He obtained a master of surgery and doctor of medicine (MD CM) from the University Bishop's College in 1877 and a doctor of civil law in 1903. In 1905, the Bishop's Medical School was absorbed by the McGill University Faculty of Medicine and graduates were able to obtain ad eundem McGill MD CM degrees: Wood was awarded one in 1906.{{cite journal|year=1942|title=Obituary: Casey Albert Wood, M.D. 1856-1942|journal=Arch. Ophthalmol.|volume=27|issue=4|pages=779–781|doi=10.1001/archopht.1942.00880040155016|author=Brawley, Frank}}

Wood served as a clinical clerk under William Osler at the Montreal General Hospital while a medical student, beginning a life-long friendship which included their shared interest in book collecting. He practiced for a while in Montreal. By 1886, Casey Wood had decided to make Ophthalmology and Otology his specialty, beginning further studies in New York at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary and then in Europe, at the University of Berlin, Moorfields Eye Hospital and Middlesex Hospital. In 1889, he settled in Chicago where he practiced, taught and published extensively.{{Cite web|url=http://archivalcollections.library.mcgill.ca/index.php/wood-casey|title=Wood, Casey A. (Casey Albert), 1856-1942 - Library Archival Catalogue|website=archivalcollections.library.mcgill.ca|language=en|access-date=2018-04-12}}{{cite book|title=The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Volume X.|publisher=James T. White & Company|year=1900|place=New York|page=284}} Wood worked as a professor of ophthalmology at the Chicago Post-Graduate Medical School and the Northwestern University.{{Cite journal |last=Snyder |first=C. |date=1963 |title=Casey Albert Wood |url=http://archopht.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=627148 |journal=Archives of Ophthalmology |language=en |volume=69 |issue=3 |pages=409–411 |doi=10.1001/archopht.1963.00960040415025 |issn=0003-9950}}

In 1917, he joined the United States Army and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel during the First World War, serving with Colonel Fielding Garrison. He retired as a colonel.

After the war, Wood studied the eyes of birds and reptiles in British Guyana and travelled later across the world including Kashmir and Sri Lanka. While in Sri Lanka, he commissioned G.M. Henry to produce a set of plates of the birds of the region.{{Cite journal |last=Winterbottom |first=Anna |date=2023 |title=Ornithology, Anthropology, and the History of Medicine: Casey Wood's Asian and Pacific Travels and Collections, c1920-36 |url=https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/bsc/article/view/37869 |journal=Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada |volume=59 |pages=19–42 |doi=10.33137/pbsc.v59i1.37869 |s2cid=259512183 |issn=2562-8941|doi-access=free }} He published a work on The Fundus Oculi of Birds (1917). Based on ophthalmoscopic studies of living birds, he was able to identify discernible differences in the eyes of the paleognaths and other birds.{{Cite journal |last=Montgomerie |first=Robert |date=2022 |title=Casey Albert Wood and The fundus oculi of birds (1917) |url=https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/anh.2022.0796 |journal=Archives of Natural History |language=en |volume=49 |issue=2 |pages=347–363 |doi=10.3366/anh.2022.0796 |s2cid=253795631 |issn=0260-9541}} He then lived in the Vatican where he studied foreign language works on ophthalmology producing a translation of Benvenutus Grassus on the eye. Among his other works is a bibliographic compilation on vertebrate zoology.{{cite journal|doi=10.2307/4076759|jstor=4076759|title=Casey Wood's 'Introduction to the Literature of Vertebrate Zoology' an Introduction to the Literature of Vertebrate Zoology Based Chiefly on the Titles in the Blacker Library of Zoology, the Emma Shearer Wood Library of Ornithology, the Bibliotheca Osleriana and Other Libraries of Mc Gill University, Montreal Casey A. Wood|journal=The Auk|volume=49|pages=114|year=1932}}{{cite journal|doi=10.1136/bjo.26.6.287|title=Dr. Casey Wood|journal=British Journal of Ophthalmology|volume=26|issue=6|pages=287|year=1942|doi-access=free}}

In 1920, Wood gave up ophthalmology and began to concentrate on ornithology.{{Cite journal |last=Dickenson |first=Victoria |date=April 2023 |title=Seeing birds: Dr Casey Wood's (1856–1942) second career |url=https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/anh.2023.0835 |journal=Archives of Natural History |language=en |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=162–176 |doi=10.3366/anh.2023.0835 |issn=0260-9541}} Apart from his specialised work on the eyes of birds, Casey A. Wood also contributed in other fields of ornithology. He wrote about 'The Starling Family at Home and Abroad' in The Condor in 1924.{{cite journal | last = Wood | first = Casey A. |author-link = Casey Albert Wood

| date = July 1924

| title = The Starling Family at Home and Abroad

| journal = The Condor

| volume = 26

| issue = 4

| pages = 123–136

| doi = 10.2307/1363216 | jstor = 1363216 | url = https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/condor/v026n04/p0123-p0136.pdf

| access-date = 2021-04-08

}} In 1926 he contributed an article on 'Lessons in Aviculture from English Aviaries' to that journal.{{cite journal | last = Wood | first = Casey A. |author-link = Casey Albert Wood

| date = January 1926

| title = Lessons in Aviculture from English Aviaries

| journal = The Condor

| volume = 28

| issue = 1

| pages = 3–30

| doi = 10.2307/1363194 | jstor = 1363194 | url = https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/condor/v028n01/p0003-p0030.pdf

| access-date = 2021-04-08

}}

He died in La Jolla, California on January 26, 1942.{{Cite news |date=1942-01-27 |title=Dr. Casey Wood, Renowned Eye Specialist, Dies |page=24 |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55981419/dr-casey-wood-renowned-eye/ |access-date=2020-07-24 |via=Newspapers.com}}

{{reflist}}

• [http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/caseywood/browse.php?p=1 Casey Wood: The Birdman of McGilll] Digital exhibition from McGill University Library & Archives.
• [http://archivalcollections.library.mcgill.ca/index.php/casey-a-wood-collection Casey A. Wood Collection] McGill University Library & Archives.
• [https://archive.org/details/cihm_79141 The eyelids and lachrymal apparatus of birds (1915)]
• [https://archive.org/details/fundusoculiofbir00wood The fundus oculi of birds, especially as viewed by the ophthalmoscope; a study in the comparative anatomy and physiology] (1917)
• [https://archive.org/details/McGillLibrary-rbsc_blacker-wood_vertebrate-zoology_Z7996V4W81929-17472 An introduction to the literature of vertebrate zoology : corrected manuscript and typescript, 1929-30 (1929)]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Casey Albert}}

Category:1856 births

Category:1942 deaths

Category:Canadian ophthalmologists

Category:American ophthalmologists

Category:Canadian zoologists

Category:American zoologists

Category:Lisgar Collegiate Institute alumni

Wood, Casey