Otto Schirmer (1864-1918) was born in greifswald. In 1896, after his father Rudolf Schirmer, he studied at the university of greifswald, the university of Munich, the university of freiburg, the university of konigsberg and the university of halle.His name is best remembered for his work on the lacrimal duct, including the elegant and simple lacrimal duct estimation test named after him (1903);He then published a paper on the microscopic anatomy and physiology of the tear system in the second edition of graf-samish hambuch, published in 1904.In 1909, he left Strasbourg and immigrated to New York, where he joined the New York graduate school of medicine, the hermann knapp memorial eye hospital, st. mark's hospital and the Bronx hospital.Schirmer test = this involves folding the sterile filter paper strips and inserting them between the lower cover and the sphere, about a third of the cover edge.The results are expressed as mm wetting at 5 min.If a local anesthetic is injected into the eye before the test is done, this is known as the basic Schirmer test