Soft Contacts versus Rigid Contact Lenses
Mankind’s ability to improve eyesight has come a long way! Today, DaVinci’s idea of placing the head in a bowl of water makes us gasp. Descartes’ plan of viewing the world through a fluid-filled tube tightly held against the cornea sounds torturous. By 1888, when the first practical hard scleral contact lens was fitted by a Swiss doctor named Adolf Fick, it successfully corrected vision, but it was heavy, cumbersome, and covered the entire front of the eye. Worst of all, the lens deprived the eye of oxygen. This led to severe pain within hours of application – ouch!
