This chapter introduces David M. Maurice (1922–2002) to the readers of this book. David made seminal contributions to optical instruments that could be used for research and diagnostic purposed in ophthalmology. Many of his inventions were subsequently further developed by other investigators and clinicians and they credited David’s prior work in the citations of their publications. A partial listing of David’s inventions includes the following: the invention and development of the specular microscope, the scanning slit optical confocal microscope, and the corneal microfluorometer. David was interested in the role of the corneal endothelium, the posterior cellular layer of the human cornea, and its pump function. Prior to David’s invention of his specular microscope the shape and the structure of the corneal endothelial cells in the corneal endothelium were observable at low resolution in vivo with the slit lamp. They became observable at high resolution in the patient’s eye with the use of the specular microscope. In my conversations with David, I asked him what optical devices motivated him to invent and develop the specular microscope. David replied that the metallurgical optical microscope was a model for him. A metallurgical optical microscope is used to observe and analyze the grain structures in metals from study of their cross-sections. These microscopes use a dark-field technique in which the contrast in the image of the polished metal specimen derives from differences in the scattered light in the reflected beam. The second aspect of the metallurgical optical microscope is that it uses oblique illumination to enhance the contrast of the grain boundaries in the specimen of the alloy. David posited that the corneal endothelial cell is involved in maintaining the corneal thickness, the normal corneal hydration, and the corneal transparency. He was interested in developing a specular microscope that could photograph high magnification images (500X) from an ex vivo eye.