If you follow the museum on social media, you may notice new little boxes in the bottom corner of our pictures that say “ALT.” These three letters are a key feature in making our social media more accessible to people who are blind or have low vision.

The history of women in ophthalmology takes us across the United States, and even into Europe, but imagine our delight to find that there was a part of this history centered in the museum’s hometown of San Francisco, California.

Did you know that the museum’s collection also includes science fiction toys? Science fiction has often imagined ways that the future might enhance or restore eyesight, and science fiction toys have brought that imagination into the hands of fans from all over the world.

The Truhlsen-Marmor Museum of the Eye® is celebrating the Halloween season with a new tour and gallery guide, Ocular Oddities: Weird and Wild Stories in Ophthalmology. Come visit the museum in person during our four open days a week, or check out these strange-but-true stories in a new virtual tour on the museum app.

The Truhlsen-Marmor Museum of the Eye® is home to nearly 4,000 aids to vision including eyeglasses, contact lenses, goggles, monoculars, binoculars and telescopes. We are currently featuring this collection in our temporary exhibit, “Spectacular Spectacles”. This intricate collection will be on view for a finite period of time in the museum’s temporary exhibit space. Be sure to catch it in person when the museum opens its doors this summer.