Elwin Marg
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2019}}
{{Infobox scientist
|name = Elwin Marg
|image =
|birth_date = {{Birth date |1918|03|23}}
|birth_place = Saint Louis, Missouri, U.S.
|death_date = {{Death date and age|2010|07|15|1918|03|23}}
|death_place = Berkeley, California, U.S.
|residence =
|citizenship =
|nationality =
|thesis_title =
|thesis_year =
|thesis_url =
|ethnicity =
|fields = Neuroscience
Optometry
|workplaces = University of California at Berkeley
|alma_mater = University of California at Berkeley
|doctoral_advisor =
|academic_advisors =
|doctoral_students =
|known_for = Electrooculogram
Mackay-Marg Tonometer
Minerva Foundation
|awards =
|religion =
|signature =
|footnotes =
|website =
}}
Elwin Marg (March 23, 1918 – July 15, 2010) was an American optometrist and neuroscientist at the University of California at Berkeley. He was the first to receive a PhD from UC Berkeley School of Optometry. It was he who gave the name electrooculogram, a technique for measurement of nerve impulse in the eye.{{cite web |author=Donnell J. Creel |title=The Electroretinogram and Electro-oculogram: Clinical Applications |date=July 2011 |url=http://webvision.med.utah.edu/book/electrophysiology/the-electroretinogram-clinical-applications/ |work=Webvision |access-date=September 4, 2013}}
He developed an improved tonometer that avoided use of anaesthetics for the first time in optometrical diagnosis. With his wife he established a non-profit neuroscience organisation, the Minerva Foundation in 1983.{{cite web |author=Gerald Westheimer |title=IN MEMORIAM: Elwin Marg |date=2010 |url=http://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/inmemoriam/elwinmarg.html |work=senate.universityofcalifornia.edu |publisher=University of California |access-date=September 4, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140907004303/http://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/inmemoriam/elwinmarg.html |archive-date=September 7, 2014 }}
Early life and education
Elwin Marg studied at the School of Optometry of the UC Berkeley. He entered an undergraduate course in 1938. In 1940, he received an AB in physiological optometry and a Certificate in Optometry. He completed PhD in 1950.
Professional career
During the Second World War, Elwin Marg served as a communications officer in the U.S. Air Force with postings in Ireland, Tunisia, and Italy. During the Korean War he was reinstated for research at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. He availed two sabbatical leaves at the Nobel Institute of Neurophysiology, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, working with Ragnar Granit, future Nobel laureate, in 1956 and 1964, the latter under a Guggenheim Fellowship. He spent the rest of his career at UC Berkeley till his retirement in 1988. First as an instructor in optometry in 1950, then as an assistant professor of physiological optics and optometry in 1951, an associate professor in 1956, and finally full professor in 1962. He published 99 technical papers in various areas.
In collaboration with R. Stuart Mackay, an electrical engineer at UC Berkeley, he completed a design of tonometer, a device for measuring intraocular pressure, in 1959.{{cite journal |vauthors=Mackay RS, Marg E |title=Fast, automatic, electronic tonometers based on an exact theory |journal=Acta Ophthalmol (Copenh) |volume=37 |pages=495–507 |year=1959 |issue=5 |pmid=14419489 |doi=10.1111/j.1755-3768.1959.tb03461.x|s2cid=34938666 }} This groundbreaking instrument was named Mackay-Marg Tonometer, after the developers.{{cite journal |vauthors=Moses RA, Marg E, Oechsli R |title=Evaluation of the basic validity and clinical usefulness of the Mackay-Marg tonometer |journal=Invest Ophthalmol |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=78–85 |year=1962 |pmid=14476464 }}{{cite journal |vauthors=Mackay RS, Marg E, Oechsli R |title=Automatic tonometer with exact theory: various biological applications |journal=Science |volume=131 |issue=3414 |pages=1668–1669 |year=1960 |pmid=14419488 |doi=10.1126/science.131.3414.1668|bibcode=1960Sci...131.1668M |s2cid=34054272 }} This new tool did not require an anaesthetic and thus, for the first time, allowed optometrists to measure intraocular pressure more conveniently.{{cite web |title=In Memoriam |date=October 2, 2010 |url=http://www.neuro-com.es/NeuroscienceCommunication/Blog/Entradas/2010/11/2_In_Memoriam.html |work=www.neuro-com.es |publisher=Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona |access-date=September 4, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140907004524/http://www.neuro-com.es/NeuroscienceCommunication/Blog/Entradas/2010/11/2_In_Memoriam.html |archive-date=September 7, 2014 |url-status=dead }}
In 1951 Marg described and named electrooculogram for a technique of measuring the resting potential of the retina in the human eye.{{cite journal |author=Marg E |title=Development of electro-oculography; standing potential of the eye in registration of eye movement |journal=AMA Arch Ophthalmol |volume=45 |issue=2 |pages=169–185 |year=1951 |pmid=14799014 |doi=10.1001/archopht.1951.01700010174006}}
Personal life
Awards and honours
- Guggenheim Fellowship in 1963.{{cite web |title=Elwin Marg: 1963: Neuroscience |url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/9370-elwin-marg |work=www.gf.org |publisher=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |access-date=September 4, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130904101315/http://www.gf.org/fellows/9370-elwin-marg |archive-date=September 4, 2013 }}
- Apollo Award of the American Optometric Association in 1962
- Glenn Fry Award of the American Academy of Optometry in 1972
- Elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Elected fellow of the American Academy of Optometry
- Charles F. Prentice Medal of the American Academy of Optometry in 1981
- Berkeley Optometry Alumnus of the Year in 1993
- Inducted into the Berkeley Optometry Hall of Fame in 2002
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.ancientfaces.com/person/elwin-marg/84117690 Birth and death record at Ancientfaces]
- [https://archive.today/20130904181017/http://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/elwin-marg Information at UC Berkeley]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marg, Elwin}}