Mansour F. Armaly

Mansour F. Armaly

Mansour F. Armaly (February 25, 1927 – August 19, 2005) was a Palestinian physician who was globally recognized^{[citation needed]} as a pioneering researcher in the modern medical treatment of glaucoma.

Armaly was born in Shefa Amr, Palestine, prior to the establishment of the state of Israel. He received his B.A. (1947) and M.D. (1951) from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. After completing his residency in Beirut at the American University Hospital, he left in 1955 to attend the University of Iowa, 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^{[citation needed]} in glaucoma research in the United States. One of his most important early studies^{[citation needed]} 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.

In 1970, he accepted a position as professor and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the George Washington University Medical Center, in Washington, D.C., serving in that role for 27 years, until 1996. He published more than one hundred scientific articles,^{[citation needed]} received multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health, 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.^{[citation needed]} From 1980 to 1987, Armaly served as President of the Pan-American Glaucoma Society. He died of cancer 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, an artist in Berlin, and Raya Armaly Harrison, an ophthalmologist in Columbia, Maryland.^[1]

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^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]} Armaly was a distinguished^{[citation needed]} 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 ^[2]

Selection of Scholar Publications

• The cup-disc ratio. The findings of tonometry and tonography in the normal eye, Arch Ophthalmol. 1969 Aug;82(2):191-6, Armaly MF, Sayegh RE
• GENETIC FACTORS RELATED TO GLAUCOMA, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 151 Issue 1, Pages 861 – 874, Mansour F. Armaly
• The Effect of Pilocarpine Ocusert With Different Release Rates on Ocular Pressure, Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. 1973;12:491–496, Mansour F. Armaly and K. R. RAO
• The Des Momes population Study of Glaucoma, Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. 1962;1:618–628, Mansour F. Armaly

References and external links

1. ^ "Mansour Armaly, 78, Leader of Early Study of Glaucoma, Dies," New York Times, September 19, 2005. (Requires registration.)
2. ^ Mansour F. Armaly Lectureship, University of Iowa

further Obituaries:

• "Glaucoma Researcher Mansour F. Armaly, 78, Dies," Washington Post, August 25, 2005.
• American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Obituary

Persondata
Name	Armaly, Mansour F.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	February 25, 1927
Place of birth
Date of death	August 19, 2005
Place of death