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1508
- Leonardo da Vinci sketched and described several forms of
contact lenses. |
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1632 - Rene Descartes of France suggested the idea for corneal contact lens. |
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1887 - Mueller of Germany made first contact lens with glass. |
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1937
- Saw the development of PMMA as contact lens material known
as the hard contact lens of today. |
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1948 - Plastic contact lenses designed to cover only the corneal of the eye. |
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1960
- Otto Wichterle & Drahoslav Lim experimented with contact
lenses made from soft, water-absorbent plastic developed by
them over a number of years. |
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1978
- The first toric contact lens received approval for distribution
in America. |
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1979
- Rigid gas permeable contact lenses made of co-polymers PMMA
and silicone were destructed commercially. |
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1980
- Tinted daily wear soft lens commercially distributed. |
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1982 - Bifocal daily wear soft contact lenses became available for commercial distribution. |
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1987 - Disposable soft contact lenses also became available for commercial distribution. |
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Further improvements were made by adding a flatter, third curve to assist the tear circulation. The complex elliptical shape of the cornea was more fully understood by the late 1960's and multicurve lenses evolved together with the first aspheric constructions. In 1961 the first Hydrophilic lens (soft) was produced in Czechoslovakia although they were not released for commercial distribution in the United States until 1971. |
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Today, modern lenses are produced on state of the art computer controlled lathes and are accurate to microns. The current lenses are made from various types of gas permeable materials and are both extremely comfortable and easy to use. The permeability of materials is measured by the term 'DK', and generally speaking the higher the 'DK' value the more oxygen passes through the material.
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