Shinobu Ishihara

Who Is Shinobu Ishihara?

Have you taken our easy, online color blindness test? The test was actually created by a man named Shinobu Ishihara. Ishihara was a Japanese ophthalmologist and army surgeon that invented the color deficiency test.

Shinobu Ishihara

Ishihara graduated from the Imperial University of Tokyo, which he attended on a military scholarship. He became a military physician after his graduation in 1905 and then studied ophthalmology at Tokyo University. He would become a staff physician at the school’s eye clinic for two years. He studied with other contemporaries in his field, including Wolfgang Stock, Karl Theodor Paul Axenfeld, and Carl von Hess.

During World War I, Ishihara became the Dean of the Medical College at the Military Medical School in Tokyo. He received his Doctorate of Medical Sciences in 1916, and he was given the role of chief at the university’s eye clinic in 1922. He would later become the Dean of the Tokyo Imperial University Medical School and the President of the Japanese Ophthalmological Society.

After retirement, Ishihara moved to the Izu Peninsula where he lived in a small cottage and served as physician to his neighbors. He did not collect payment for his services, but his patients often left produce or other tokens as payment.

The Ishihara Color Vision Test

Ishihara developed his namesake color vision test in 1919. The test consists of cards with a colored circle made up of different-sized dots that are distributed irregularly. The person taking the test is asked to identify the numeral inside the colored circle which is made up of dots that are a different color or hue than the rest of the dots. People without color vision deficiency will be able to “see” the numbers, but people with color vision deficiency will not be able to see all (or any) of the numbers.

While there are other types of color vision tests, the Ishihara is the most widely used. You can take an online version of the Ishihara color vision test here.