|
The history of Contact Lenses started a long time ago. Surprisingly Leonardo Da Vinci had suggested lenses as a means of improving the eyesight in the year 1508. He had even drawn a few sketches of how he felt it could be done. In 1636, Rene Descartes had proposed another method of covering the cornea, but that was not feasible since it would have made blinking an impossible task. In 1827, Sir John Herschel suggested a means whereby the eyes could be covered by a mold which would fit it perfectly. 120 years ago, the first contact lenses were actually made and tried by a German glassblower F.A. Muller.
He adapted Herschel 's ideas into a physical form and created a glass contact lens. Some years later A.E.Fick, a Swiss physician, and Edouard Kalt , an optician from Paris almost simultaneously claimed to have fitted glass lenses over the corneas. It is only in 1936, when Willian Feinbloom from New York started using the material polymethyl methacrylate or PMMA as it is more popularly called, that the true contact lenses began to be made. He made lenses which had a glass portion which covered the cornea and an outer band of plastic. This was the true precursor to the modern hard or rigid contact lenses.
These were further improved upon by Kevin Tuphy in 1948, when he made the lenses smaller and lighter in weight.. George Butterfield added further improvements by making the peripheral curves a little more flatter so that they fitted the cornea even more perfectly. Each successive development made the lenses lighter, smaller and of better materials, thereby making them easier to use. Soft Contact lenses began their advent only in the 1950s. the hard contact lenses were often very difficult for many to use, so experiments were conducted to find a softer material to make lenses.
The first real soft lenses were made in 1961 by Dr. Wichterle , who surprisingly used his son 's erector set and parts of a bicycle to make a spin casting machine to make the lenses. His work was used to make the commercial soft contact lenses by Bausch & Lomb in 1971. As with hard contact lenses, each successive experiment produced a better and softer lens, and today in the US 90% of the lenses are soft contact lenses.
In 1987, disposable soft contact lenses began to be sold commercially, along with lenses which were being used only for cosmetic purposes, such as to change the eye color. As time goes on, the history of contact lenses will be one of many landmarks, as each successive scientist or developer will make them easier and safer to use.
Contact Lens | Privacy Policy | Terms And Conditions |
|