LogMAR visual acuity chart

Historical Significance: This is one of the original logMAR charts devised by Ian Bailey and Jan Lovie in the National Vision Research Institute of Australia in the course of the first research project of the NVRI, which began in 1974 and led by Ian Bailey, as senior research officer. He was one of five students who had graduated with a BAppSc(Optom) in 1962, the second cohort to obtainthe then new degree in optometry in the University of Melbourne. Bailey practised optometry for a few years before heading to Europe to see the world. There he qualified for his Fellowship of the British Optical Association and studied contact lens practice, then just emerging as a core part of optometric practice. He joined the Australian College of Optometry as lecturer and Clinic Administrator in 1968. He was the leading person in the setting up the Kooyong Low Vision Clinic in 1972. This was an outstanding success and ignited his life-long interest in low vision. In order to pursue his then newfound interest in low vision, he applied to the National Health and Medical Research Council for a research grant, which he got and which included his own salary. He could now give the flick to his impossibly demanding job in the Australian College of Optometry and give his time to pursuing ideas. He took his project into the brand new but empty National Vision Research Institute. This first project was right in the heartland of optometric interest. It investigated visual performance and optometric management of patients with severe visual handicap caused by age-related macular degeneration. He recruited young Melbourne optometrist, Jan Lovie, as a graduate student and collaborator on the project. One of their outputs of this first project was the development of the Bailey-Lovie LogMAR system for measurement of visual acuity that was to become the foundation for the international standard for measurement of visual acuity. The paper published in 1976 (Bailey IL, Lovie JE. New design principles for visual acuity letter charts. Am J Optom Physiol Opt. 1976; 53: 740-745.) still gets about 25 citations a year. This was a brilliant start for the National Vision Research Institute. His biography is published in Clin Exp Optom 2004; 87: 37-41 and is also on this web site under the tab 'People who made history'.