| Although I have been wearing contact lenses for just | | | | water and a microscopic lens at the far end. |
| over two years now, my first recollection of lenses | | | | Development of the contact lenses we know today |
| was from bob-a-job week when I was eleven years | | | | started to speed up from this point in time. |
| old. My sister had recently started wearing them. | | | | In 1827 (although it maybe as early as 1823, opinions |
| Attempting to put them in one day she's dropped one | | | | differ on this point) the English astronomer Sir John |
| and couldn't find it. The whole family helped and I was | | | | Herschel introduced the idea of actually grinding the |
| the lucky soul who managed to find it by a better | | | | contact lens to a specific shape to better conform to |
| method than standing on it. For my troubles, my mother | | | | the eye's shape. |
| kindly gave me 11p towards my bob-a-job total. | | | | Then the breakthrough. In 1887 the German |
| (For those in countries other than the UK, Bob-a-Job | | | | glassblower F Muller made the first ever contact |
| was something that members of the Boy Scouts | | | | lenses specially made to be worn on the eye without |
| would do once a year. During a specific week of the | | | | causing irritation. This kickstarted two opticians from |
| year, normally in the Spring months, doorbells and | | | | separate countries - Edouard Kalt of France and |
| knockers up and down the length of the country would | | | | Eugen Fick of Switzerland - to report that they had |
| sound as eager, scrubbed faces joyfully announced to | | | | used contact lenses to correct the sight of patients |
| those foolish enough to answer the door "Bob a job | | | | successfully. |
| week, have you any jobs you'd like doing?" Tradition | | | | In the US - William Feinbloom made the first ever |
| was that you'd find a simple, innocent and non taxing | | | | American lenses in New York and introduced the idea |
| job for them to do and then give them a bob or two. | | | | of plastic as an optional material. Delayed by the not |
| All the money they collected would then be handed | | | | too small event of World War Two, the AOA |
| into the scoutmaster at the end of the week and | | | | (American Optometric Association) declared contact |
| passed to charity. I was glad never to be one of the | | | | lenses a formal practice of optometry in 1945. |
| sorry victims who ended up having to clean a car | | | | Following this approval, work on designing the best |
| inside and out for 10p!) | | | | lenses proceeded apace. In 1950 Dr. G Butterfield |
| Now the contact lenses my sister had were scary. It | | | | designed a corneal lens, an important step forwards in |
| was in the time when contact lenses were made out | | | | that it allowed lenses to be created that would follow |
| of non permeable glass! ( I shudder even now at the | | | | the shape of the eye instead of sitting on top of it. |
| thought of having to try and place a thin sliver of | | | | Ten years later in 1960 Otto Wichterie and Drahoslav |
| curved glass into my eyes!) | | | | Lim begin experimenting with water absorbing soft |
| But it got me to pondering recently - what is the | | | | plastic as a means of making lenses. Eleven years |
| history of contact lenses? When did they first appear | | | | later in 1971, the soft lens officially became available for |
| and who was the first person to think of them? The | | | | commercial use in the US with the rest of the world |
| answers will, I think, surprise you quite a bit. | | | | following at varying degrees, dependant on their ruling |
| So - starting from the beginning, can you think who | | | | medical bodies granting permission for use of the |
| might have dreamed up the contact lens? A famous | | | | material. |
| or pioneering doctor maybe? An optician thinking way | | | | And it is this step which gives us the biggest move in |
| before his years? | | | | making lenses commercially available today. |
| And in what year did the first contact lens idea spring | | | | Based on the acceptance worldwide of soft lenses, |
| up? Who had the vision of foresight - if you'll pardon | | | | we now have the different styles we know today. |
| the pun? | | | | Rigid Gas Permeable lenses, toric lenses, tinted and |
| Well, not unsurprisingly, the first person to dream the | | | | colored lenses, bifocal lenses - all the different lenses |
| concept of a contact lens was none other than | | | | we have were born from that point. |
| Leonardo da Vinci in 1508!! It's surprising that it was in | | | | So when you get to the end of a day and stand |
| 1508 but not at all surprising that the father of so many | | | | before your bathroom mirror, carefully taking out your |
| far sighted concepts, Leonardo da Vinci, should be the | | | | lenses and placing them in their overnight lens case - |
| man to first sketch the idea. | | | | just pause a second and think of Leonardo and those |
| Nothing really happened for over a century once | | | | clever people who came after him. |
| Leonardo had thought of them. After all, they didn't | | | | From the simple sketches of an idea in a book filled |
| exactly have the precision tools and knowledge to | | | | with clever, before their time ideas, through the |
| make them at that time. | | | | dedication and imagination of more clever people and |
| So it's again surprising to find that in 1632 a Frenchman | | | | finishing with you standing in your bathroom balancing a |
| called Rene Descartes came up with the idea for the | | | | small sliver of plastic on the tip of a finger, the contact |
| corneal contact lens. This idea was left on the shelf for | | | | lens has had one hell of a journey already! |
| almost another two centuries until 1801, when Thomas | | | | Do you have the vision to see where it should go |
| Young evolved Descartes's idea to correct his own | | | | now? |
| sight by using a quarter inch long glass tube, filled with | | | | |