The Ultimate in Research

Musician, band hooker, cattle breeder, antique collector, real estate investor, holder of a seat on the New York Stock Exchange--Jules Caesar Stein, 70, has made money in all those roles. To say nothing of founding the Music Corp. of America and parlaying it into a $300 million music-movie-TV empire. Not surprisingly, he never found much time to work at the profession he trained for: ophthalmology. But last week Dr. Stein made amends.

Standing on the terrace of the only marble building on the University of California's Los Angeles campus, the sometime ophthalmologist dedicated the Jules Stein Eye Institute to the cause of preventing blindness. Said London's Professor Norman Ashton: "You have earned the gratitude of many people, but the deepest gratitude will never be expressed--nor can it be. It will be found in the eyes of those who live after us, who drink in the visual beauties of life without fearing the loss of that vision, and who may say, 'It is wonderful to see.' "

Microscopic Detail. Wonders indeed were embedded in the $6,000,000 neoclassical building for which Stein himself put up $1,325,000 while associates in the entertainment world donated most of the balance. Behind the marble walls were the world's most carefully designed and elaborately equipped facilities for research into the causes and prevention of blindness. The institute's research complex is staffed not only by ophthalmologists, but also by anatomists, physiologists, biochemists, pathologists and a microbiologist. It boasts three costly electron microscopes to permit research to concentrate on the ultrafine structure of the eye. All rooms have closed-circuit television for the staff to monitor patients' activities and check on their safety. Patients who have no useful vision will be able to entertain themselves with talking books and piped music via pillow speakers. For those with some vision, there is color TV in every room.

Closed-circuit TV lenses are also built into the light fixture over each operating table and connected with the teaching and seminar rooms. Watching with the aid of television's magnifying eye, an unlimited number of students will be able to follow each operation in minutest detail, even in an operating area only an eighth of an inch across.

Degas & Disney. Stein concerned himself with every detail of the institute--from anesthetics to esthetics. He ordered a study of what pictures patients like best, and the vote went to the impressionists. So all rooms have two large, high-quality reproductions of a Renoir or Van Gogh, a Degas or Manet. For the children's clinic, decorated with handmade tiles, Stein got a design from the Walt Disney organization.

To mark the opening, there was a highly technical symposium on advances in ophthalmology. There was also a Hollywood-style dinner, at which guests were asked to put on sleep masks for a minute to help them realize what the loss of vision means. After acknowledging the presence of "many men and women of material wealth," most of whom had given $25,000 or more to the institute, Stein added that too many men still bequeath their wealth to foundations, and leave to the trustees the selection of philanthropies. "It would be wonderful," he told his audience, "if you would start something during your lifetime, so that it can be continued after you are no longer here." Stein, for one, had started something.

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