Optometry is a significant medical field. For hundreds of years, researchers and doctors have been finding ways to help people see properly. The team at Servi-Stat, LLC, has put together a small look at the history of optometry.
The early history is a little blurry. About 1,000 years ago, early researchers in China and Venice were using lenses as a way to correct vision. In 1267, philosopher Roger Bacon wrote about eyesight in his work Opus Majus, which was inspired by Arab scholar Ibn al-Haytham’s work Book of Optics. In this text, Bacon wrote about the use of lenses for people who had vision problems. Scientist Johannes Kepler wrote Astronomiae Pars Optica in 1604, which is typically cited as the beginning of modern optometry. The work he did lead to the establishment of England’s first spectacle makers in 1629.
After this, there was a wide array of progressions. 1784 is the year that Benjamin Franklin invented split bifocal lenses. In 1864, F.C. Donders established the principles of prescription. By 1888, the first contact lenses were created. Once we reached 1921, the US began to protect and regulate the field of optometry, making further developments that have led to modern optometry techniques.
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