The main motive for wearing contact lenses is, in addition to excellent optical properties, to stop wearing glasses. 7 out of 10 people using contact lenses are women, mostly aged 17-24. Persons over 45 years of age only begin to wear contact lenses exceptionally and use special types such as presbyopic contact lenses. The use of individual types of contact lenses by clients varies, depending on the local tradition, but also on the economic situation. In our country, it is mainly monthly or annual soft lenses for the correction of myopia. For example, multiple disposable lenses are used in the US. The optical benefits of contact lenses are obvious, they provide a wider field of view, they do not smell in the fog and rain, vision is sharper and better than glasses, disappearing nostrils and other facial goggles are popular with athletes.
The Long Journey
In 1887, the glass maker Müller of Wiesbaden created a scleral-type glass lens for the eyelid-removed patient to protect his eye from blurring. This patient has been using it for 20 years. The term contact lens was first used by Adolf Eugen Fick (1888) from Zurich, and based on a corneal cast design in 1888 designed a scleral contact lens that was made by the Zeiss Optical Works in Jena. In the same year, Jean Baptist ophthalmologist EugenKalt created a corneal glass lens that was heavy and therefore poorly centered on the eye.
The Early Stages
In 1928, Zeiss designed a test set of contact lenses with different optical powers and the lenses could be ordered according to predefined parameters. Josef Dallos, a Hungarian physician, developed Czapody's method and introduced a method of fingerprinting, so that contact lenses could be made individually with greater precision according to the curvature of the cornea. At the same time the making of the lens edger set off.
The Progress
In 1936 Rohm and Haas Company invented plexiglass and hence this material was used in the production of hard contact lenses. The first person to make a Plexiglas contact lens is in dispute. It is known that Thier in the Netherlands applied it in 1938 and Fritz in Brussels in 1939. Obrig and Mullin sold glass lenses with a plastic edge in the US as early as 1936.
At 40, Bier in England recognized the importance of tear film for tolerance and fixation contact lenses and improved their tolerance through holes in the limb part. In 1948, California's Tuohy optician introduced corneal contact lenses into practice. Since 50 years, the use of contact lenses has continued to grow as a result of the development of instrumentation. In the 1960s in Czechoslovakia, Professor Wichterle and Ing.Líma produced the polymer, which became the basic material for soft contact lenses, and at the same time introduced the technique of producing contact lenses by centrifugal casting.
Modern Options
This manufacturing process significantly reduced the cost of manufacturing contact lenses and allowed them to expand widely. In 1990, due to complications from some types of lenses, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) in the US issued an order not to carry certain types for more than 7 days. These lenses were called "disposable". In recent years, the term flex wear has been introduced, meaning that contact lenses are worn overnight but not regularly and every day.