EYE test inventor Ferdinand Monoyer has been celebrated by Google with a winking Doodle.
The French ophthalmologist is renowned for his groundbreaking research on eye sight which led to him developing the Monoyer chart more than 100 years ago.
He also introduced a new measurement for vision called the dioptre in 1872 which measures the distance you have to be from text to read it.
The pioneering eye doctor would ask his patients to read from rows of gradually shrinking letters on his Monoyer chart until they were no longer able to distinguish the shapes.
Mr Monoyer has been honoured with a Google Doodle showing his chart on what would have been his 181st birthday.
Who was Ferdinand Monoyer?
Ferdinand Monoyer was born in Lyon, France, in 1836.
Inspired by his father, who was a French military doctor, he decided to follow in his footsteps and study medicine at the University of Strasbourg.
The French ophthalmologist is famed for developing his Monoyer chart
He worked his way up to become Associate Professor of Medical Physics before moving to become the director of the Ophthalmic Clinic at the University of Nancy.
Mr Monoyer later worked as Professor of medical physics at the University of Lyon from 1877 to 1909.
He died at the age of 76 years in 1912 and his tomb is located in the Cimetière de la Guillotière in Lyon.
In a speech he was remembered as a “scholar who knew to think and to reflect”.
Did Ferdinand Monoyer invent the eye test?
The French ophthalmologist is famed for developing his Monoyer chart which measures visual acuity, or how well the retina focuses.
He introduced the chart at around the same time that Dutch ophthalmologist Herman Snellen developed his Snellen chart in 1862.
The Snellen chart is now the most widely used, although many ophthalmologists and vision scientists now use the new and improved LogMAR chart.
Mr Monoyer actually hid his own name in the test he used – and if you look closely at the Google Doodle you may be able to make it out.
"He developed the dioptre, the unit of measurement for vision that's still used today," said Google.
"The dioptre measures the distance you'd have to be from text to read it. Most notably, Monoyer devised an eye chart where every row represents a different dioptre, from smallest to largest."
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