Dr Irvin Borish

Dr Irvin Borish, one of the founding fathers of optometry, has died at the age of 99 in Florida following a short illness.

In 1968 Dr Borish and a group of optometrists took on the US authorities to establish optometry as the provider of primary eye care in the US, setting a precedent for the profession in many other countries and earning himself the epithet of the architect of optometry. Dr Borish is perhaps best remembered as the author of Clinical Refraction which was first published in 1948 and known to generations of optometry students.

The son of Lithuanian immigrants, Dr Borish could not afford textbooks at high school and turned to optometry when a career as a poet eluded him. Despite suffering a heart attack in 1974 after a successful career as an independent practitioner he went on to senior posts in academia and to hold pivotal roles in optometry and earn many accolades. These included being voted the optometrist of the century and being the first person elected to the optometry hall of fame.