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If you think contact lenses are a recent phenomena, then you are
absolutely wrong. History of contact lenses can be traced long back.
They are as old as the sixteenth century. The present day contact lenses
have been the efforts of many scientists and researchers. It has been
their hard work that has led
to the evolution of the present day
contact lenses.
Giving an answer to the question that who can be
credited as the real inventor of contact lenses, will be a difficult
task as contact lenses were the innovative hard work of a number of
people.
However, the credit of the modern form of the contact
lenses is generally given to F. E. Muller. He came up with the concept
of contact lenses in 1887. Another researcher who is considered a
pivotal contributor to the modern day evolution of contact lenses is
Rene Descrates. He was the one who brought up the concept of corneal
contact lenses. John Herschels, a British scientist also made
commendable contribution in the contact lens technology.
A new
era heralded in the second half of the nineteenth century as there were
incredible inventions that were made in the field of contact lenses.
This led to a spurt of knowledge about the contact lenses within the
common man. This created a niche of people in the society. At this point
of time Eugen Fick's Scleral came up with some new concept of contact
lenses. This new concept became a hit among the people. These lenses
were then later modified and improved by August Miller.
The
contact lens history took a new dimension with the advent of lenses made
from scleral plastic. This diverted the attention of the researchers
towards the development of more sophisticated form of contact lenses.
William Feinbloom took the contact lens industry on a higher stepping
stone and is therefore considered a pioneer in the history of contact
lenses. Another scientist named Joseph Dallos too earned good accolade
for his phenomenal contribution.
As there was a technological
revolution, various scientists came up with their contributions. George
Butterfield contributed by bringing an improvement in the corneal
lenses. With the silicone hydrogel contact lenses coming up, the focus
was shifted towards more sophisticated and comfortable contact lenses.
All
these points from the history shows that people from time to time were
in a need of better form of contact lenses. And even now the innovations
have not stopped. Now and then the manufacturers are coming up with
newer models of contact lenses. With the coming up of colored contact
lenses, there has been a shift in their concept as they do not remain a
commodity of vision correction but are now increasingly used for
cosmetic purposes.
But as the saying goes: history never ends
here. There are many more innovations that are still pending, they may
come on the block soon.
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