Invention of contact Lens

Yearly contact lens from Bausch+Lomb

Leonardo da Vinci, inventor, scientist and artist invented the concept of contact lens in 1508. We have Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of how vision could be corrected by placing a substance on the eye.

Prototype

In 1630, French scientist René Descartes developed an idea for a glass tube filled with water and fitted with a lens on the end. The tube would be held against the eye by hand, making it impractical. But the fact that the lens would be held only against the cornea rather than the entire eye was insightful.

In 1801, British scientist John Young created a glass contact lens prototype filled with water. He affixed it to his own eye using wax. Young’s prototype tested the theories of both da Vinci and Descartes.

In 1827, British astronomer Sir John Herschel improved on Young’s prototype by developing principles for improving the fit. This was to be done through improved grinding of the inside and outside curve of the lens, as well as creating a mold of the eye for a more accurate fit.

First Glass Contact Lens

F.A. Muller, German maker of glass eyeballs, manufactured glass contact lens that covered entire eye in 1887. The lens was designed to to protect diseased eye, and not designed for correcting the vision.

In 1888, Adolf Eugen Fick, German physiologist, fitted first glass contact lens onto patients. The lens covered the whole eye like Muller’s design, but it also corrected vision. He later made versions of the lenses that covered only cornea rather than coering scleral. Adolf Eugen Fick's invention was thought to be the first usable contact lens.

First Plastic Contacts Lens

In 1936, William Feinbloom, optometric scientist created scleral contact lenses made with a glass portion covering cornea and plastic around it. The plastic made the lenses more comfortable and easier to fit than glass lenses.

Obrig and Mullen developed first all-plastic scleral lenses using new, highly superior material called polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) in 1938.

In 1948, Kevin Tuohy, California optometrist, patented first corneal contact lenses. Worn only on the cornea rather than on entire surface of the eye, these were hard contact lenses made of rigid plastic material (PMMA).

First Soft Contact Lenses

Otto Wichterle developed first soft contact lenses in 1950, made of hydrogel. These flexible, water-absorbent lenses were more comfortable, and they turned out to be better for dry eye and eye fatigue.