Contact lenses may seem like a relatively recent invention, but they were actually first proposed by Leonardo da Vinci. Read on to learn more about the 500-year history of contacts.

It seems almost unbelievable that da Vinci first mentioned placing glasses directly over the eyes in 1508, but the great man, who also made original designs for a helicopter, was clearly way ahead of his time.

In modern contact lens terms, the first such instrument that most of us would recognize was originally developed in 1888 by a Swiss physiologist named AE Fick. Fick used a method of taking casts of the eye to ensure that the lens would fit perfectly.

His first experiments on the production of this type of molds were generally carried out with rabbits. When Fick got to wear the first pair of his own glasses, he found them to be very uncomfortable, not surprising since they were made of glass!

In fact, the fact that the first contact lenses were made of glass was a real limiting factor. Not only were they uncomfortable to wear, but they were actually bad for the eyes if worn for an extended period of time.

All this was to change in the 1930s when American scientists produced the first plastic lenses. These were not, however, without their own problems. The new plastic lenses, like their glass predecessors, were designed to cover the entire eye.

Unfortunately, by covering the entire eye, these early lenses restricted the supply of oxygen, which meant they weren’t perfect.

In 1947, another American, Kevin Tuohy, devised a lens that only covered the cornea, rather than the entire eye. His new lenses were known as corneal lenses and were similar to what we now know as “hard contact lenses”.

Tuohy’s invention formed the basis of modern contact lenses. It is thanks to his design and the work of others before him that many of us are now able to wear contact lenses.

In fact, it could be said that the vision of these great inventors has helped many of us to see more clearly.