5000 GLASS EYES

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXXI, Issue 8836, 23 October 1942, Page 1

5000 GLASS EYES

UNIQUE BRITISH FACTORY

GERMAN 'PRISONERS -BENEFIT

German prisoners are among the thousands who have been given glass eyes by a unique Government factory in the North of England.

It issued 5000 eyes last year, and close upon 000 of them went to civilians who had lost an eye in the air raids. The factory supplies the Navy, the Army and the Air Force; th 3 Allied 1 Forces including the Poles, the Fighting French, the Norwegians and the Czechs; the A.T.S., the W.A.A.F. ’s and other women’s Sen-ices. They have oven sent eyes out to the troops in the Middle East. The factory was working in a small way in peace time for men who had lost an eye in the last war. They used to get their glass from Germany. It is mado in Britain to-day. The glass comes to the factory in long tubes and rods. A glass tube is heated over a gas burner; the worker blows through it and makes a bulb in the middle; one end is snapped off, and work on the oyo begins. The bulb is again heated, ns are rods of coloured glass which are pressed upon the bulb to form the pupil and iris. Crystal glass is worked in for the cornea and little red veins are marked out with tiny strands of red glass. It is often a difficult job to match up the colouring, for there is no standardisation. Each eye depends upon the patient himself. Glass eyes are coming in for renewal at the rate of 250 a week.