(1893–1983)

“Ida Mann was a woman of outstanding intellect, and with a formidable and charismatic personality.” Professor Anthony J. Bron, BSc FRCS FRCOphth Head of the Department of Ophthalmology and Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology University of Oxford

Ida Mann’s life was characterized by a passionate pursuit of knowledge. She was born in London at a time when there were few opportunities for women to enter medicine. In 1914, at the beginning of the World War I, she entered the only medical school open to women, the Royal Free Hospital, and then went on to St. Mary’s Hospital, where she finished her studies in 1920. While at St. Mary’s, she began her study of congenital and hereditary eye defects. She used human embryos to study ocular development for her doctoral thesis and received her degree in 1924. Her studies were the basis of her classic volumes, The Development of the Human Eye (1928) and Congenital Abnormalities of the Eye (1937). In 1927 and 1928, she received honorary appointments to the Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital, respectively. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, she was appointed by the Ministry of Supply to study the effects of chemical warfare on the eye. In 1941, the Oxford University invited Dr. Mann to become the Margaret Ogilvie Reader in Ophthalmology. There, she established the Nullfield Laboratory of Ophthalmology. In 1942, Mann was given a personal professorship at Oxford and became a don and a fellow of St. Hugh’s College. During the war years, in addition to treating many combat casualties, she developed an interest in thyroid disease and studied night-blind patients and males receiving vitamin A-deficient diets. She also worked with the newly discovered antibiotic penicillin as a treatment for eye infections. In 1945, she became senior surgeon at Moorfields, the only woman to achieve this distinction at that time. In 1949, she immigrated to Australia in search of better weather, a warmer academic climate, and closer ties to family. During her “English Period,” Dr. Mann was a role model for the feminist movement. She won the Gifford Edmonds Prize in 1927 and gave the Harrison Gale Lecture in 1929, Doyne Memorial Lecture in 1928, Nettleship Lecture in 1932, and Montgomery Lecture in 1935. She also served with distinction on many national and international committees. After moving to Australia, Dr. Mann became heavily involved in studying and treating trachoma among the aborigines. For more than a decade, she traveled over thousands of miles of rough dirt roads throughout the hot, dry inland and the wet, tropical north, often camping by night in the bush land. She recorded details on thousands of patients and subsequently arranged for mass treatment programs. Her work also took her to Papua, New Guinea, and later to Taiwan and other parts of the Asia–Pacific region. She was appointed a regional consultant to the World Health Organization and became one of the founders of the Society of Geographic Ophthalmology. Her professional experiences and travels were combined in her book, Culture, Race, Climate and Eye Disease. With her new field of research came further acclaim: the Howe Medal in 1958 and the Bowman Lecture for the Ophthalmological Society of the UK in 1961. In 1962, she gave the Norman McAlister Greg Oration for the Ophthalmological Society of Australia. She was elevated to the order of Dame of the British Empire (DBE) in 1980 and awarded honorary doctorates by Western Australia’s two universities.

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