History of Lens as a Means of Vision Amelioration

The history of inventing contact lenses traces back to XVI century when Leonardo da Vinci sketched the first idea of contact lens prototype in 1508. But only in 300 years it became possible to fabricate and wear the first contact lens on an eye. Thus due to efforts of the Czeck chemist Otto Wichterle and his Assistant Drahoslav Lim we got to know a modern contact lens as a mean of vision amelioration.

Rene Descartes – a French physicist – proposed another idea in 1636, in which a glass tube filled with liquid is placed in direct contact with the cornea. The protruding end was to be composed of clear glass, shaped to correct vision; however the idea collapsed, since it made blinking impossible.

In 1801, while conducting experiments concerning the mechanisms of accommodation, scientist Thomas Young constructed a liquid-filled ‘eyecup’ which could be considered a predecessor to the contact lens. On the eyecup's base, Young fitted a microscope eyepiece. However, like Leonardo da Vinci, Young's device was not intended to correct refraction errors.

Sir John Herschel, in 1845 described two ideas for the visual correction: the first was a spherical capsule of glass filled with animal jelly, and the other was a mould of the cornea which could be impressed on some sort of transparent medium. Though Herschel reportedly never tested these ideas, they were both later advanced by several independent inventors such as Hungarian Dr. Dallos in 1929. This enabled the manufacture of lenses that conformed to the actual shape of the eye.

At long last in 1887 a German glassblower F.E. Muller produced the first eye covering to be seen through and tolerated. In 1887, the German ophthalmologist Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick constructed and fitted the first successful contact lens. While working in Zürich, he described fabricating afocal scleral contact shells, which rested on the less sensitive rim of tissue around the cornea, and experimentally fitting them: initially on rabbits, then on himself, and finally on a small group of volunteers. These lenses were made from heavy blown glass and were 18–21mm in diameter.

Modern medicine employs different contact lenses in its practise for different purposes, mainly of soft and rigid structure. These lenses are structured in such a manner so as it is possible for them to rotate and keep crisp vision. But not all of them are good for usage in certain situations, let say, when it is astigmatism it is not recommended to wear soft lenses, you should better wear rigid ones. To solve this problem torics were invented.

People choose to wear contact lenses for many reasons, often due to their appearance and practicality. When compared with spectacles, contact lenses are less affected by wet weather, do not steam up, and provide a wider field of vision. They are more suitable for a number of sporting activities. Additionally, ophthalmological conditions may not be accurately corrected with glasses, which is appealing to torics and regular lenses.