Contact Lens' Problems? 隱形眼鏡的難題

而這種情況直到1888年有所改變。德國眼科專家Adolph Fick將玻璃鏡片制成大于角膜的角鞏型鏡片，用于矯正視力。這一設(shè)計(jì)的確有幾分成效，它在兔子上的測試進(jìn)展得很順利。與此同時，德國的醫(yī)科學(xué)生August Muller也在對自己的鏡片進(jìn)行著實(shí)驗(yàn)，實(shí)際上他是想要提升自己的視力。但是在眼鏡戴上半小時以后，就產(chǎn)生了劇烈的疼痛。在隨后的短期修正后，他的近視的確得到了改善。當(dāng)時的隱形眼鏡有兩個難題：第一，鏡片過大。它們比今天的隱形眼鏡大很多。它們幾乎覆蓋了整個眼白。第二個難題更加嚴(yán)峻，玻璃并不是適當(dāng)?shù)碾[形眼鏡的材料。眼鏡需要呼吸。我們身體中的氧氣是通過血紅細(xì)胞來傳輸?shù)模悄s是直接從空氣中汲取氧氣。

That changed in 1888 when German ophthalmologist Adolph Fick started forcing fitted blown-glass shells into the eyes of bunnies, the tech's first live test subjects.Fick's design was aimed at helping patients with Keratoconus, a problem that renders the cornea cone-shaped. The glass shells were meant to push the eye flatter, not to improve, say, near sightedness.It actually sort of worked. With the rabbit testing going well, Fick took the experiment to his own peepers before trying it out on a few other human test subjects.

At the same time, German medical student August Muller was experimenting with glass discs aimed at improving vision-his own, actually. His 1889 thesis recounts that although he could get the lenses fit on his eyes, violent pain kicked in about a half an hour after insertion. But with the short-lived fix, his myopia improved.

Two things to keep in mind about these early glass models: First, the lenses were huge. They were not the small, light things we have today. Instead imagine big glass sheets—blanketing even the whites of the eyes. The shape exacerbated problem number two. Glass was the wrong material. Eyes need to breathe. Where every other tissue in the body is delivered oxygen via red blood cells, the cornea sucks in oxygen directly from the atmosphere. Glass is impermeable to oxygen. If the oxygen doesn't get to the eye, the cornea starts to swell," explains a professor of optometry.

以上圖片摘自livestrong。