CME INDIA Presentation by ⚜ Dr. M. Gowri Sankar, MD, Senior Assistant Professor, Dept. of General Medicine, Government Medical College and ESI Hospital, Coimbatore.
Today’s History Feature:
Prof. Dr. Shinobu Ishihara
(1879 – 1963)
💠 Japanese Army Physician & Ophthalmologist
His contributions…
🔸Ishihara was born in Tokyo, Japan. He studied medicine at the Imperial University of Tokyo in a military scholarship with an obligation to do military service.
🔸Subsequent to his medical graduation in 1905, he enrolled to study ophthalmology at University of Tokyo and then moved to Germany in 1914 for further training.
🔸Because of the outbreak of First World War, he returned to Tokyo and began his career as an instructor in the Military Medical School.
🔸In 1922, he got appointed as the Professor of ophthalmology and became the Dean of the Tokyo Imperial University Medical School in 1927.
🔸While he was working in the Military Medical School, he was asked to develop the color vision chart to screen military recruits to find the abnormalities of color vision.
🔸Dr. Ishihara finally came with the charts based on pseudo-isochromaticism principle [the effect of two (or more) colours appearing equivalent (isochromatic) when in fact they are distinct (pseudo)].
🔸Then, his assistant, who was a color blinded physician helped Dr. Ishihara to test the charts.
🔸In fact, Dr. Ishihara made his own hand painted charts of irregular coloured dots of various size and tones in two or more colours.
🔸Initially, he used hidden Japanese script hiragana in the dot field. Later, he used numericals to identify in the plate.
🔸Finally, his optical color mixing effects of Ishihara Plate Test was published in 1917. It is used to check the suffering of protanopia or deuteranopia, the red-green color vision deficiencies.
🔸Actually, his chart is the combination of 38 plates filled with colored dots that form the base of this test. Soon his test was accepted by the medical profession and became ubiquitous – widely used worldwide.
🔸Apart from that, he made a significant contributions in the diagnosis of trachoma and for vision test.
🔸Moreover, he published several articles in his field and authored the text book “The Concise Ophthalmology.” He served as the President of the Japanese Ophthalmological Society for 14 years.
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A Dedicated Ophthalmologist
Prof. Dr. Shinobu Ishihara🙏🏼
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Great cme
I am a female with Red/Green colour blindness, I would have never known if I had never tried his test. Great man.
It is an very useful narrotion on the inventer of Ishihara plate book by Dr prof Dr.Shunobu Ishihara.This great invention is being used in Indian Railways on. All the category of the employees very particularly for pilots of Rail engine. I had opportunity to serve in this field. But now to know about the great professor who was the founder this very important tool for the safety of lakhs of public who travel in train .
Thank you for the narrotion !
My salutations for prof.Dr Shunobu Ishihara !