Prof. Huibert Jan Simonsz
Department of Ophthalmology
Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam
 
Summary of the bibliographic negligence:

The author, JM Miller, a former ARVO Trustee, claimed he discovered extraocular muscle pulleys. "The discovery of extraocular muscle (EOM) pulleys" (first sentence abstract) and "This discovery was unexpected in a field that supposed extraocular anatomy and muscle actions to be basically understood, stimulated research in anatomy, physiology, mathematical analysis and modeling, and prepared ground for further theorizing" (Introduction second sentence), refer to his Vision Research 1989 doi:10.1016/0042-6989(89)90126-0 paper.

However, as Professor André Roth from Geneva and the former Professor Joseph Lang from Zürich have emphasized again and again, extraocular muscle pulleys have been described by Jacques René Tenon in Paris in 1805 and by Phillibert Constant Sappey in Paris in 1888 (see my perspective doi:10.1080/09273972.2020.1767480 for details). Translations of these descriptions were published in Strabismus in 2001 and 2003 and Miller was informed of these translations.

Secondly, Miller only re-introduced extraocular muscle pulleys in his 1989 MRI-study after I pointed out an interpretation error in a draft version of this paper, guided by findings from our 1985 CT-study doi:10.1001/archopht.1985.01050010130036 that, 4 years earlier, used the same study protocol as Miller's 1989 MRI-study, but that is not cited by Miller. In that 1985 CT-study we found that rectus muscles do not shift sideways in eye movements out of the plane of the muscle, as Miller found again in his 1989 MRI-study.

In the autumn of 1987, I commented on a draft version of the MRI-study. Miller erroneously assumed, as in his 1987 CT-study in monkeys doi:10.1016/0042-6989(87)90087-3 that, as the rectus muscles bellies do not shift sideways, their effective direction of pull remains constant in the orbital frame. I pointed out to him that part of the force needed to keep the muscle in place is delivered by the retrobulbar fat and its enveloping connective-tissue sheets as described in our 1985 CT-study, causing the effective direction of pull of the muscle to change in eye rotation out of the plane of the muscle. After I pointed out this error, Miller rewrote the paper and re-introduced the pulley concept in the final manuscript. The original letter from Miller to me from January 20th, 1988, acknowledging the error and the rewriting of the manuscript, is availabale on request. A year before the publication of Miller's 1989 MRI-study, I published my arguments for a changing direction of pull based on the findings in our 1985 CT-study in the Proceedings of the Congress of the European Strabismological Association in May 1988 (Simonsz HJ, Kolling GH, van Dijk B: Analysis of oblique muscle dysfunction with the Robinson computer model. Trans XVIIth Meet Europ Strabismological Assoc, ed: Murube del Castillo J, Madrid, May 1988, p303-12. Page 306, point 8). In this proceedings paper I gave Miller credit for calling this a pulley in his upcoming paper which - I assumed then - would appear later in 1988. I sent these proceedings to Miller a few years ago but he found them not legible. As Miller, in his 1989 MRI-study, repeated my 1985 CT-study, got the same findings and only re-introduced the pulley concept after I pointed out his interpretation error, he should quote our 1985 CT-study doi:10.1001/archopht.1985.01050010130036 when explaining his "discovery" of pulleys.

In summary, I demand that all authors describing the "discovery" of extraocular muscle pulleys, including IOVS Editor J. Demer and others, must quote their first descriptions by Jacques René Tenon in 1805 and by Phillibert Constant Sappey in 1888, and our paper doi:10.1001/archopht.1985.01050010130036. A corrective addendum must be added to doi:10.1167/iovs.19-28156, acknowledging these three references.