Mansour F. Armaly - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Mansour F. Armaly was a Palestinian physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

who was globally recognized as a pioneering researcher in the modern medical treatment of glaucoma

Glaucoma

Glaucoma is an eye disorder in which the optic nerve suffers damage, permanently damaging vision in the affected eye and progressing to complete blindness if untreated. It is often, but not always, associated with increased pressure of the fluid in the eye...

.

Armaly was born in Shefa Amr, Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

, prior to the establishment of the state of Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. He received his B.A.

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

(1947) and M.D.

Doctor of Medicine

Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...

(1951) from the American University of Beirut

American University of Beirut

The American University of Beirut is a private, independent university in Beirut, Lebanon. It was founded as the Syrian Protestant College by American missionaries in 1866...

in Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

. After completing his residency in Beirut

Beirut

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

at the American University Hospital, he left in 1955 to attend the University of Iowa

University of Iowa

The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

, from which he received the M.Sc. in 1957. Armaly became an American citizen and joined the university's faculty, remaining for thirteen years.

Armaly's perception that glaucoma was in need of more extensive research led him to devote himself to its study, and under him the University of Iowa developed one of the premier programs in glaucoma research in the United States. One of his most important early studies proved that the incidence of glaucoma was increased fivefold in those with family histories of the disease, a pattern that facilitated subsequent clinical diagnosis of glaucoma, which can lead to blindness

Blindness

Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...

.

In 1970, he accepted a position as professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the George Washington University

George Washington University

The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...

Medical Center, in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, serving in that role for 27 years, until 1996. He published more than one hundred scientific articles, received multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health

National Institutes of Health

The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...

, and was the recipient of numerous prestigious professional honors, including the Order of the Cedars for Scientific Achievements awarded by the Lebanese Government, the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology Award of Merit, an Achievement Award from the International Glaucoma Congress, and the Sir Stewart Duke Elder Gold Medal. From 1980 to 1987, Armaly served as President of the Pan-American Glaucoma Society. He died of cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

at the hospital where he had long worked at the age of 78.

He was survived by his wife of 55 years, Aida Armaly, and his two children, Fareed Armaly

Fareed Armaly

Fareed Armaly is an Arab American artist, curator, author and editor who lives and works in the US and Berlin, Europe. Starting in the late 1980s, his work introduced a focus on the open definition of contemporary artistic practice as the medium itself, well-suited towards rendering a contemporary...

, an artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

in Berlin, and Raya Armaly Harrison, an ophthalmologist in Columbia, Maryland

Columbia, Maryland

Columbia is a planned community that consists of ten self-contained villages, located in Howard County, Maryland, United States. It began with the idea that a city could enhance its residents' quality of life. Creator and developer James W. Rouse saw the new community in terms of human values, not...

Legacy

In 2004 the Mansour F. Armaly Lecture was established at the University Of Iowa, Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, to honor an extraordinary clinician-scientist who devoted his career to the study and care of patients with ocular hypertension and glaucoma.

Armaly was instrumental in defining the natural history of glaucoma, in developing techniques of early detection and monitoring function loss in the eye, and in demonstrating the genetic character of glaucoma.

Armaly was recruited by Dr. Braley in 1958 from the American University in Beirut, Lebanon. As director of the glaucoma service he became internationally-known. Armaly was a distinguished member of the University of Iowa Department of Ophthalmology faculty from 1958–1970.

The Lecture Recipients have been nominated since 2004: 2004 Robert N. Weinreb, MD; 2005 David L. Epstein, MD; 2006 Richard L. Abbott, MD; 2007 M. Bruce Shields, MD; 2008 Michael A. Kass, MD

Selection of Scholar Publications

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