Poor eyesight could have spelled disaster in the ancient world.
If you did not see the predator, you would be lucky if the predator did not see you.
The quality of life of a perceptually impaired person was in dire need of an important upgrade.
Thus, necessity brought to life a new invention…
The earliest example of a visual aid being used comes from the renowned Roman author
Pliny the Elder who in his book Naturalis Historia (published in the year 77 AD) mentions
an emerald reading stone being used by the emperor Nero.
Reading stones were probably the first visual aid to be used, when placed on top of a text
they magnify the letters.
A specific lens dated around the 8th century was found in the Assyrian palace of Nimrud
in modern-day Iraq.
Archeologists suspect that this Nimrud lens could have been used as a magnifying glass
although it might as well have been used as a tool for lighting fires or maybe just for
decorative purposes, nothing concrete is known about this interesting object.
The earliest recorded comment of use of LENSES for optical purposes was made in 1268 by the
medieval philosopher Roger Bacon.
The first recorded eyeglasses is reported to have been in made by around 1290 AD in
Central Italy, most likely in Pisa.
The famous Dominican friar Giordanno of Pisa wrote:
The friar however never mentioned the name of this inventor and it remains lost in the
annals of history.
Giordano's colleague Friar Alessandro della Spina of Pisa (d.
1313) was soon making eyeglasses.
The Ancient Chronicle of the Dominican Monastery of St. Catherine in Pisa records: "Eyeglasses,
having first been made by someone else, who was unwilling to share them, he [Spina] made
them and shared them with everyone with a cheerful and willing heart."
Venice quickly became an important center of manufacture, especially due to using the
high-quality glass made at Murano.
By 1301, there were guild regulations in Venice governing the sale of eyeglasses and a separate
guild of Venetian spectacle makers was formed in 1320.
Early frames for glasses consisted of two magnifying glasses riveted together by the
handles so that they could grip the nose.
These are referred to as "rivet spectacles".
The earliest surviving examples were found under the floorboards at Kloster Wienhausen,
a convent near Celle in Germany; they have been dated to circa 1400.
During the 17th and until the early 19th century there was a new fashion in town, the so-called
Nuremberg style glasses.
These were one-piece wire frames (usually made out of copper) with round lenses.
The next important event in the genesis of eyeglasses comes in 1727 when the English
optician Edward Scarlett discovered the now standard eyeglass frames which are hooked
around the ears.
With this move he solved a 5 century old problem of stability which came with the other spectacles
which primarily were pinching the nose to keep them in place.
Another historical landmark in this journey was made when Benjamin Franklin invented the
bifocal lens somewhere in the 1760s.
These lenses have two areas of different magnifications, for people with presbyopia and myopia, commonly
known as farsightedness and near-sightedness in that order.
Back in the early 20th century optician Moritz von Rohr and the now famous name in the lens
industry, Carl Zeiss invented the Zeiss Punktal spherical lenses which made it possible for
the wearer to see clearly when looking through the peripheral areas of the lens.
Prior to this invention, wearers had to turn their head so that the object was at the centre
of the spectacle lens if they wanted to see it clearly, a truly remarkable achievement
which ushered in the era of the modern-day eyeglasses we use.
Although some of us are still waiting for the long overdue X-ray glasses the journey
that our ancestors brought us into is a remarkable experience in and of itself.
Stay focused, friends!