Casey Albert Wood

Casey Albert Wood (November 21, 1856 – January 26, 1942) was a Canadian ophthalmologist and comparative zoologist who studied aspects of animal vision especially those of birds. He collected books on birds and zoology and helped establish the Blacker-Wood collection in zoology and ornithology at the McGill University Library.

Early Like

Wood was born in Wellington, Canada West and studied at local schools before graduating from the Ottawa Collegiate Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in 1874.

Wood married Emma Shearer in 1886.

Post-Secondary Education

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 eundnem McGill MD CM degrees: Wood was awarded one in 1906.

Medical career

He 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. By 1886, Casey Wood had decided to make Ophthalmology and Otology his specialty, beginning further studies in New York followed by study in Europe. In 1889, he settled in Chicago where he practiced, taught and published extensively. Wood worked as a professor of ophthalmology at the Chicago Post-Graduate Medical School and the Northwestern University.

Great War

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.

Post-War Research

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. He published a work on The Fundus Oculi of Birds (1917). 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.