Ferdinand Monoyer Who was Ferdinand Monoyer Google Doodle honours inventor of eye test

Who was Ferdinand Monoyer Google Doodle honours inventor of eye test
FERDINAND Monoyer the inventor of the first decimal eye test has been honoured with a special Google Doodle to celebrate what would have been his 181st birthday
Ferdinand Monoyer is one of the more obscure Google Doodle picks although the majority of people will have encountered his inventions at some point in their lives

The opthamologist created the first decimal eye chart in 1872 which featured rows of letters in different sizes

Each row represented a different dioptre – a unit of measurement for vision that Monoyer invented and that is still in use today

“The dioptre measures the distance youd have to be from text to read it” Google explains
The pioneering ophthalmologist would ask patients to read up the chart until they could no longer distinguish characters

Monoyer was known to change the font of a particular letter if it didn’t suit him

“After all if youre going to judge a persons vision by it that letter had better be as legible as possible“ Google adds

Notably he also hid his own name in his eye chart The first line letter of each line from the second to the sixth rows spells his surname while the last later of each line from the second to the tenth line spells out his first

The Monoyer chart has largely been replaced by the Snellen chart which was invented soon after Monoyers and places the largest letters at the top

Around three-quarters of Britons wear glasses or contact lenses or have had laser eye surgery according to the College of Optometrists with almost 3000 million people around the world classified as blind or visually impaired
Monoyer was born in Lyon France on May 9 1936 He served as an associate professor of medical physics at the University of Strasbourg from 1871 and later worked in Nancy and Lyon

He died on July 11 1912 at the age of 76 tears and was interred in the Cimetière de la Guillotière in Lyon

At his funeral the president of the Société nationale de Médecine de Lyon said “To the memory of this scholar the Medical Society bows with respect and sadness she has lost a friend who was also her counsellor who knew to think and to reflect”

To celebrate the 181st anniversary of his birth Google has created a special Doodle featuring his eye chart and a blinking set of