In memoriam Robert Barry Daroff, M.D. (1936-2025).

Abstract

Robert Daroff (1936-2025) was one of the most influential neurologists of the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. Following education at Ivy League research universities, Daroff was the first U.S. neurologist to serve in a frontline combat unit during the Vietnam war. Subsequently, when neuro-ophthalmology was exclusively an ophthalmology subspecialty, Daroff pioneered neuro-ophthalmology as a subspecialty of neurology, training with neuro-ophthalmologists Lawton Smith and William Hoyt. Daroff then established his own pioneering Ocular Motor Laboratory in Miami in conjunction with Louis Dell'Osso. Daroff introduced the simultaneous binocular recording of each eye separately, allowing identification of dysmetria in normal and diseased individuals, and ultimately measurement and modeling of pathology in the pursuit and saccadic systems. After his appointment as neurology chairman at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland (1980), he became a national and international leader in neurology, making fundamental contributions to neurologic education and oversight of scientific integrity, and the subdisciplines of neuro-ophthalmology, headache, and neurotology. As Editor-in-Chief of Neurology, Daroff garnered national recognition for boldly addressing allegations of scientific misconduct. Although holding many high-profile roles, including as president of both the American Neurological Association and the American Headache Society, Daroff considered his greatest medical legacy to be the residents he trained.