David Glendenning Cogan


David Glendenning Cogan was an American ophthalmologist.

Biography

He studied at Dartmouth College as an undergraduate from 1925 to 1928 and then at Dartmouth Medical School from 1928 to 1930 and received his bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in 1929. He was then enrolled at Harvard Medical School in 1930 and received his medical degree there in 1932.
He spent a year at the University of Chicago Clinics as an intern and then served a two-year residency at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. He spent the year 1937 in medical study in Switzerland, Germany and Holland on Harvard's Moseley Travelling Fellowship.
Cogan was from 1940 to 1943 the acting director and from 1943 to 1973 the director of Harvard Medical School's Howe Laboratory of Ophthalmology and from 1962 to 1968 the chair of Harvard Medical School's ophthalmology department. From 1974 to 1985 he was the chief of neuro-ophthalmology at the NIH's National Eye Institute.
His 1948 text Neurology of the Ocular Muscles and his 1966 text Neurology of the Visual System were major contributions to neuro-ophthalmology.
Cogan was part of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission that reported on radiation-induced cataracts suffered by survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Upon his death he was survived by his wife, Frances Capps Cogan, 2 daughters, and 4 granddaughters.

Awards and honors