The name Ishihara is known worldwide because of the color vision test he designed in 1918, where a subject is shown a coloured pattern and asked what numerals they see there.
Subjects with different forms of color blindness give different answers to those without.
Ishihara also developed a Japanese visual acuity chart and an apparatus for determining the near point, both currently in wide use in Japan.
He also made significant contributions to the study of trachoma and myopia.

In 1908, Ishihara entered the postgraduate course in ophthalmology at the Imperial University of Tokyo, studying under Jujiro Komoto.
Subsequently, he studied in Germany under Professors Wolfgang Stock, Theodor Axenfeld and Carl von Hess.
Ishihara was appointed the professor and chairman, to succeed Komoto, at the Ophthalmology Department of the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1922 and served until March 1940.
The name Ishihara is known worldwide because of the color vision test he designed in 1918, where a subject is shown a coloured pattern and asked what numerals they see there. Subjects with different forms of color blindness give different answers to those without. Ishihara also developed a Japanese visual acuity chart and an apparatus for determining the near point, both currently in wide use in Japan. He also made significant contributions to the study of trachoma and myopia.
In 1908, Ishihara entered the postgraduate course in ophthalmology at the Imperial University of Tokyo, studying under Jujiro Komoto. Subsequently, he studied in Germany under Professors Wolfgang Stock, Theodor Axenfeld and Carl von Hess. Ishihara was appointed the professor and chairman, to succeed Komoto, at the Ophthalmology Department of the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1922 and served until March 1940.
Shinobu Ishihara