First glass contact lens (Fick)
Primera lente de contacto de vidrio (Fick)
- Date
- 1887-1888 · confidence medium
- Place
- Zurich, Switzerland
- Credited to
- Adolf Eugen Fick (with August Müller and Eugène Kalt)
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A blown-glass lens that rests on the sclera and covers the cornea with a saline solution, tried first on rabbits and then on volunteers. It is the first contact lens applied to vision correction.
Fick (Zurich), Müller (Kiel) and Kalt (Paris) developed them almost simultaneously in 1887-1888; Leonardo (1508) and Descartes (1636) only proposed the idea.
What it led to
- plastic contact lenses (Tuohy, 1948)
- treatment of keratoconus
- Wichterle's soft lenses