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Sunday 13 July 2014

Contact Lens

Leonardo da Vinci is frequently credited with introducing the idea of contact lenses in his 1508 Codex of the Eye, where he described a method of directly altering corneal power by either submerging the head in a bowl of water, or wearing a water-filled glass hemisphere over the eye. Neither idea was practically implementable in Da Vinci's time.

Artist's impression of da Vinci's method for neutralizing the refractive power of the cornea

In 1888, the ophthalmologist Dr Adolf Fick constructed and fitted the first successful contact lens at his Zurich clinic. He got the idea from popcorn kernels stuck in his teeth.

Fick's lenses were made from heavy blown glass and were large, unwieldy, and could only be worn for a couple of hours at a time.

Fick published his work, "Contactbrille", in the journal Archiv für Augenheilkunde in March 1888.

In 1936 New York optometrist William Feinbloom introduced plastic lenses, making them lighter and more convenient. These lenses were a combination of glass and plastic.

Contact lenses, other than the cosmetic variety, become almost invisible once inserted in the eye

The principal breakthrough in soft lenses was made by the Czech chemist Otto Wichterle with a soft, water-absorbing plastic. Wichterle developed them on a home-made apparatus built using a children's building kit.

In 1972, British optometrist Dr. Rishi Agarwal was the first to suggest disposable soft contact lenses.

Ronald Reagan was the first US president to wear contact lenses.

The first disposable toric lenses were introduced in 2000 by Vistakon.

A British doctor found in 2017 27 lost contact lenses in a patients eye.

Gas permeable contact lenses are lenses that are worn overnight which temporarily reshape the cornea. This allows the user to have perfect vision during the day without having to wear glasses/contact lenses.

In 2010, the worldwide contact lens market was estimated at $6.1 billion, while the US soft lens market was estimated at $2.1 billion.

As of 2010, the average age of contact lens wearers globally was 31 years old and two thirds of wearers were female.

Source Wikipedia

1 comment:

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