The article tells about a life journey, scientific and practical career of an outgoing German ophthalmologist Albrecht von Grafe (1828-1870). He described embolism of the retinal artery, optic neuritis and many other pathological processes. Seven years of his scientific work A. Grefe devoted to the study of eye muscles, strabismus and its correction with surgery, the study of amblyopia. Later, he described in detail the symptoms of ocular muscle paralysis and the clinical manifestations of diphtheria and benign renal conjunctivitis, outlined the ways of drug treatment of these diseases. At the first International Ophthalmological Congress in Brussels in 1857 Gref made a report "On the nature and treatment of glaucoma by iridectomy". This operation brought him world fame and saved many patients from blindness. In 1859 Gref proposed a method for peripheral linear extraction of cataracts and invented for this a special long and narrow scalpel, behind which the name Grefevsky was preserved. As time has shown, the basic theoretical and practical positions and discoveries of Albrecht von Grafe still constitute the foundation of our knowledge in ophthalmology.