-
Aug 24, 1000
Reading Stones
Sometime between the year 1000 and 1250 crude technology began to develop regarding reading stones (simple magnifiers). English Franciscan Friar Roger Bacon (1220 -1292), in his 1268 ‘Opus Majus’, noted that letters could be seen better and larger when viewed through less than half a sphere of glass. Bacon's experiments confirmed the principle of the convex (converging) lens, described by Alhazen (965-1038), "Father of modern optics", Arabian mathematician, optician and astronomer at Cairo, -
Period: Aug 24, 1000 to
history of eyewear
-
Aug 24, 1286
The addition of handles and rivets
Early recorded evidence demonstrates that glasses first appeared in Pisa, Italy about the year 1286. Technically, they were formed from two primitive convex shaped glass/crystal stones. Each was surrounded by a frame and given a handle. These were then connected together through the ends of their handles by a rivet. -
bifocals/trufocals
Bifocals or split lenses were improvised most likely in London after the 1760’s by Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). They were made by halving lenses of differing powers and positioning the segments together with a straight line across the middle. The upper portion was ground for distance vision while the lower portion was ground for the near vision. He was certainly wearing them and able to order them from local opticians by the mid 1780’s. -
First Optical Shop
In 1799, he decided that spectacles might be an appropriate addition to these other wares so he established the first optical shop in America in Philadelphia. Until the War of 1812, McAllister imported all of the spectacles he sold in his shop. -
Astigmatism
Astigmatic lenses came into being in the U.S. in 1828 when McAllister and his son John, Jr. began importing cylindrical lenses for the correction of astigmatism. Actually Sir George Airy (1801-1892) was the first to design concave astigmatic lenses for his own myopic astigmatic eyes in 1825. -
Spectacles that grasp on to the nose
Five hundred years after they had first been invented, spectacles without sides, which had been originally clamped on top of the nose, reappeared around 1840 as the pince-nez. They became very popular as middle-class eyeglasses for both men and women before the end of the 19th century and were worn until about 1935. -
Corneal lenses
In 1550 Leonardo da Vinci is credited with coming up with the idea. Also in 1600s Rene Descartes had written a book titled Diotric, in which he confided his idea for corneal contact lenses. A scientist in Switzerland tried to make a lense out of glass, however the eye could not tolerate it. In 1800s a German glassblower made the first lens. He fited soldiers in WWII with them because they weren't allowed glasses. After their popularity grew, however plastic material was more sought after. -
Photochromatic
Photochromic lenses such as those made by Transitions Optical are clear (or nearly clear) indoors and darken automatically in response to sunlight outdoors. They also protect your eyes from 100 percent of the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation.
