August Siegrist

August Siegrist studied at Basel, Zurich, Bern, Lausanne, and Vienna obtaining his medical doctorate at Bern in 1892. He then received further education at the Bern surgical clinic under Emil Theodor Kocher (1841-1917), and at the eye clinics in Lausanne under Marc Dufour (1843-1910), under Ernst Pflüger (1846-1903) at Bern, and in Vienna under Ernst Fuchs (1851-19030). He was habilitated for ophthalmology at Basel in 1900, and from 1903 was ordentlicher professor and director of the university eye clinic at Bern. He held this tenure until 1935.

Siegrist mad important contributions to the optical correction of the keratoconus, an essential stage in the history of contact lenses. In 1916 he used the first blown contact glasses, from Gebrüder Müller of Wiesbaden, and he developed a method for a rational fitting. From 1920, he took part in the development of the first cut and ground contact glasses of Zeiss.

His brother was the physician Albert Siegrist.

• Refraktion und Akkomodation des menschlichen Auges. Berlin, 1925.
• Der graue Altersstar. Berlin and Vienna, 1928.
• Die skrofulöse Augenentzündung. Berlin and Vienna, 1931.