The History of Soft Contact Lenses
Though many people might consider contact lenses to be a relatively recent phenomenon, the concept for contact lenses dates to the early 16th century, when Leonardo Da Vinci sketched the first design of corrective lenses to be worn directly on the eye. Such designs and concepts, though, took more than 300 years to materialize into the first prototype. It took nearly another 100 years after that first prototype for soft contact lenses to be introduced to the public. Does this Spark an idea?
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Background
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In 1827, Sir John Herschel, an astronomer, thought that contact lenses could work if they could form a perfect fit with human eyes. Sixty years later, a glassblower from Germany, F. E. Muller, made Herschel's theory a reality by producing the first known contact lens, which were made of glass. About a year later, physician A.E. Fick and optician Edouard Kalt are widely recognized as being the first people to use the glass contact lens to correct vision. The glass lenses, though, were cumbersome and heavy, and could only be worn for short periods of time.
Glass and Plastic
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In 1936, optometrist William Feinbloom created a lens that was made of both glass and plastic. The glass part of the lens was in the middle, with plastic surrounding the outside of the lens. It was easy to see that lenses made from plastic were easier to wear, and much more tolerable. Even though plastic was used in these lenses, they were not considered soft lenses.
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Progress
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Throughout the 1940s, opticians were working on ways to make contact lenses entirely out of plastics. In 1948, Kevin Tuohy is credited as the first to begin manufacturing contact lenses entirely out of plastic. By 1950, George Butterfield improved on Tuohy's design by incorporating into the plastic lens curves to help make the lenses more comfortable and effective to those wearing them.
Dr. Wichterle and Bausch & Lomb
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In the mid- to late-1950s, Drs. Otto Wichterle and Drahoslav Lim attempted to create contact lenses using a soft plastic that could absorb water. In 1961, he produced four hydrogel, soft contact lenses, built with a homemade machine composed of parts from his son's erector set and a bicycle. The soft contact lens were much more comfortable to wear, and Bausch & Lomb introduced the first commercial model in 1971.
Disposable Soft Lenses
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Since the introduction of soft contact lenses to the public, other contact lens advancements include extended wear soft lenses, lenses that could safely change the color of the wearer's eye, disposable soft lenses and lenses with ultra-violet absorbers. Today, more than 90 percent of contact lenses that are worn are soft lenses.
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