ERG, VER and Psychophysics

In Dedication to Hermann Burian (1906-1974) T. LAWWILL (Louisville) This 14th Symposium of the International Society for Clinical Electro- retinography is dedicated to the memory of a great ophthalmologist, great physiologist, former officer of this Society, and my professor, Hermann Martin Burian. Dr. Burian was a visual physiologist and an ophthalmologist. His physiol- ogy heritage was the finest. His father, Richard, was an eminent European physiologist who at the time of Dr. Burian's birth was director of the Stazione Zoologica in Naples. The family later moved to Leipzig and Belgrade, where Dr. Burian's father held professorships. Hermann Burian's ophthalmological academic heritage was also outstand- ing. After graduating from medical school in 1930 in Belgrade, he became a student of Tschermak and along the way worked with such famous men as Siegrist, Goldmann and Weigert. In 1936, Dr. Burian came to the USA to join the Dartmouth Eye Insti- tute. Here he worked in ocular motility under Professor Bielschowsky and in physiological optics under Professor Ames. He was chief ophthalmologist of the Darmouth Eye Institute from 194245. He was in the private practice of ophthalmology in Boston for six years before moving to Iowa City, Iowa where, for twenty years, he practiced and taught ophthalmology and carried out research on many problems in ophthalmology and visual physiology. Dr. Burian's two main interests were strabismus and electrophysiology, but this did not keep him from publishing outstanding work on glaucoma, congenital anomalies, and color vision.