INVISIBLE EYEGLASSES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 154, 27 March 1937, Page II (Supplement)

INVISIBLE EYEGLASSES

An American Invention Every fifth person in the United Stales wears eye-glasses, says the "News-Week” of New York'. Now something of a revolution is taking place in tlie eye business with glasses that are invisible to anyone looking at tlie wearer. This triumph of scientific research is the prize of Dr. Feinbloom. He describes liis discovery as "contact" lenses —siieetaeles which do not bridge tlie nose, but are tucked under eyelids and ride snugly on the eyeball itself..

For nearly a century physicians have toyed with tlie idea, but the fact that ail eyes were not shaped alike seemed to present insuperable difficulties in the practical working of such lenses. Dr. Feinbloom lias succeeded where so many failed. First, lie made a rough wax shell, shaped to lit. the eye approximately. In tlie centre of this he placed a shoe-button sliver of glass —tlie magnifying or reducing lens to fit. over tlie cornea. Then he slipped this composite mass under the eyelid into contact with the anestlietised eye. For 10 or 15 minutes the patient was allowed to roll this about. Gradually the wax melted and (lowed into depressions in tlie eye and rose over buijips. When it had melted to a perfect tit, Dr. Feinbloom irrigated the eye with ice water to harden the wax. Then lie removed the cast.

Neat mechanical steps of duplication of the mould followed. Aplastic resin—a transparent, acid-resisting, semi-flex-ible substance —replaced the wax around the tiny corneal lens. The result was a perfect-fitting contact lens at a cost of anywhere between 50 and 100 dollars.