Metamorphosis of Contact Lenses

Abstract

In 1971, soft contact lenses were a striking addition to the ophthalmic field that related functionally to the existing hard contact lenses by correctingrefractive error, but their properties and description were different so as to confound ophthalmic professionals in their introduction. Their inventor Otto Wichterle, a Czechoslovakian chemist and anticommunist dissident, developed the soft lens in the 1950-60s with little knowledge of the hard lens, but its potential was broad enough to break through the communist barriers and to spark international consumer interest and development.Challenges in manufacturing and developing soft contact lenses created a complex discipline around the cornea and lid physiology, and optics. This expanded greatly the scientific knowledge of the eye and adnexa to allow a soft, hydrophilic lens to remain symbiotic with the eye. Challenges were met over the past 50 years with a change in nomenclature and in automated manufacturing closer to hard lenses, optical advancements, new materials and surface treatments, and lens disinfection methods. The science developing from the diminutive soft lens led to the incorporation of related biomedical and polymer science within the broader ophthalmic field that inordinately influenced optical advancements, instrumentation,and ocular pathology.