The roots of the Dept. of Ophthalmology date back to 1869 when the predecessor of Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine was an Opium Refuge established by British Church Missionary Society. In 1871, it was expanded into Hospital of Universal Benevolence where the first hospital President Dr. David Duncan Main performed cataract surgeries for leprosy patients. After experiencing hundreds of years development, the Dept. of Ophthalmology of Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine was developed into Eye Center in 1996 and upgraded into Zhejiang University Eye Hospital in 2021.