The unprecedented mayhem produced by the trench warfare of World War I produced a large number of head wounds, some of them producing relatively small discrete wounds of the brain. When these wounds involved particularly the striate cortex of the occipital lobe, their location could be correlated with the resulting visual field defects. The most influential study was that by the British neurologist Gordon Holmes in 1918. His topographical mapping of fields on the striate cortex definitely located central vision at the posterior pole and was widely reproduced in textbooks for most of the 20 ^th Century. Only with the advent of new imaging techniques was it shown that Holmes had grossly underestimated the area of visual cortex subserving central vision: the central 24 degrees occupies about 80% of striate surface area. This cortical magnification is why central fields are so useful clinically.

REFERENCE: Horton JC and Hoyt WF: The representation of the visual field in human striate cortex. A revision of the classic Holmes map. Arch Ophthalmol 1991;109:816–824.