Shinobu Ishihara

Shinobu Ishihara was educated at the Imperial University of Tokyo on a military scholarship with an obligation to do military service. Following graduation in 1905 he became a military physician and studied ophthalmology at Tokyo University under professor Jujiro Komoto (1859–1938) serving for two years as a staff physician at the university eye clinic. Later he was a teacher of eye medicine at the military-medical academy in Tokyo.

From 1912 to 1914 Ishihara received further education/training with Wolfgang Stock (1874-1956) in Jena, Karl Theodor Paul Axenfeld (1867-1930) in Freiburg im Bresigau, and with Carl von Hess (1863-1923) in Munich. When World War I began in 1914 he returned home to Tokyo and worked as an instructor in the Military Medical School. During the war years he was Dean of the Medical College. As a military physician he held the rank of a chief physician general.

In May 1916, Ishihara received his Igaku Hakushi – Doctor of Medical Sciences – from the Imperial University in Tokyo and in 1922 succeeded Komoto as full professor as well as chief ot the university eye clinic. Ishihara succeeded Komoto in the chair of ophthalmology in 1922, and from March 31, 1927, to March 31, 1940, he was Dean of the Tokyo Imperial University Medical School. Upon his retirement in 1940 he became professor emeritus. He was President of the Japanese Ophthalmological Society for 14 years.

In Japanese Ishihara published lectures on the diagnostics of trachomas, an atlas and a sketch of trachomas, testing boards for vision, the textbook "Concise Ophthalmology" as well as numerous contributiuons to journals, both in Japanese and German. He was the editor of Acta societatis ophthalmologicae japonicae.

• The Cause of Idiopathic Night-Blindness and Conjunctivitis Sicca.
  Thesis for Doctor of Medical Sciences at Tokyo University, 1916.