CONTACT LENSES ARE COOL!
I. Introduction:
You may find it hard to believe, but a well known artist, and scientist Leonardo Da Vinci created the first ideas of a contact lense in 1508. It only took another 300 years, for people to actually wear contact lenses. At first, it was just an idea, now we have people who go through laser eye procedures to recieve their 20/20 vision back. But in the middle of all this we have an invention that would impact the entire world, contact lenses. As I said, it was just an idea by our great Italian inventor, but it soon became a reality. It started from a glass contact lens, that could only be tolerarted for several hours, to a hard plastic lens that covered the entire cornea. To what we have today, which is a soft contact lens that can be worn very comfortably. Since the invention of contact lenses, there have been tremendous improvements for contacts and the people who wear the contacts. For example, there are contacts for people who have astigmatism, contacts that can be thrown away by just one day of usage. And there is a solution, than can be used to clean the contact lens, where in early years they would have to sit in a container that cleaned the lens over night or during the day.II. Discovery:
It seems that there were many different scientist who took part in the discovery of contact lenses. As you know, Leonardo Da Vinci sketched the first idea of a contact lense that peo
ple would wear in their eyes. In 1827, English astronomer Sir John Herschel had an idea of making a sculpted lense that would fit in the wearer's eye, so contact lenses could be worn and fit perfectly around the eye's surface. In 1887. German glassblower F.A. Muller created the first glass contact lens. A Swiss physician A.E. Fick and Paris optician Edouard Kalt were credited for making the first contact lens that helped far sighted and near sighted people. A new revolution began to emerge when many people did not find wearing the contact lenses were comfortable so in the 1950's Czechoslovakian chemist Otto Wichterle and his assistant Dr. Drahoslav Lim performed experiments to produce a softer contact lense. They used a water absorbing plastic called hydroxyethyl methacrylate. This contact lens would be much more comfortable to wear than the glass contact lenses that were used before.III. Contacts:
There are so many different types of contact lenses. For example, daily contacts lenses, that are only used for one day. There are colored contacts, where you can choose any colored contact of your choice and wear them. Astigmatism is a popular choice because so many people have it in the world. Astigmatism is a type of refractive error in the eye, it can cause blur in the vision. And there are contacts that help support the astigmatism. I have it myself, but it is only in my right eye and it is not as severe as some people may have it. They have created contacts that are usable for longs periods of time, and they have also created contacts where you dont have to take them out. Because it is a hassel having to put them on in the moring and then having to take them out right before you go to bed.IV. Impact on World/Humanity
I believe that contact lenses has impacted the world and humanity in a positve way. Contact lenses are comfortable and it has given people a different option than just having to wear glasses all day long. For athletes, such as myself, it would not be comfortbale or productive to be wearing glasses while you are being active. Me personally, loves contacts and I dont know what I would do without contacts. They stay in your eye, you dont have to be messing with them every second, like ehat you would have to do with glasses. Plus, some companies it is cheaper to buy a set of contacts, then having to buy a pair of glasses. If a contact breaks then you just throw it away and open a new set, but if your lens on your glasses break then that is a whole different story.
V. Journal Article
In my journal article, it is a women by the name of Nina Shen Rastogi who believes contact lenses produce trash, but the their impact towards the enviroment is minimal. And the statistic that she refers to is the amount of plastic that we use for our contact lenses. She states that "a single pair of soft lenses weighs about 25 milligrams after it has been dehydrated. Twenty-six pairs of you biweekly lenses, would produce about 0.65 grams of dried out plastic" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/25/AR2010012503112.html). The statistics show that tons ofplastic is being used for these contact lenses that we use no more than a month, it maybe producing alot of trash and wasteful products, but it is not effecting our enviroment in any harmful way.
IV. List of References
- Rastogi, N. S. (n.d.). Nina Shen Rastogi - Contact lenses produce trash, but their environmental impact is minimal - washingtonpost.com. Washington Post - Politics, National, World & D.C. Area News and Headlines - washingtonpost.com. Retrieved February 17, 2011, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/25/AR2010012503112.html
- The History of Contact Lenses. (n.d.). Contact Lenses - LensShopper.com - Compare daily prices on discount contacts online.. Retrieved February 17, 2011, from http://www.lensshopper.com/history-of-contact-lenses.asp
- The History of Contact Lenses. (n.d.). Eye Problems, Conditions & Eye Care Resources at eyeTopics.com. Retrieved February 17, 2011, from http://www.eyetopics.com/articles/18/1/The-History-of-Contact-Lenses.html
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