The bifocal contact lens is a great convenience in eye correction technology, that traces it’s lineage back to the original bifocal glasses invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1984.
With Franklin’s glasses, invented for his own use when he tired of switching between glasses for up close and distance correction, the lens for distance was mounted in the top of the frame, while the lens for up close was mounted in the bottom.
Franklin himself said of his invention, “I therefore had formerly two pairs of spectacles, which I shifted occasionally, as in traveling I sometimes read, and often wanted to regard the prospects. Finding this change troublesome, and not always sufficiently ready, I had the glasses cut and a half of each kind associated in the same circle. By this means, as I wear my own spectacles constantly, I have only to move my eyes up or down, as I want to see distinctly far or near, the proper glasses being always ready.”
The idea of contact lenses was first thought of by in 1945, but it wasn?t until the 1890?s that physicians came up with practical contact lens methods.
The term contact lens itself is credited to Dr. A. Eugene Fick, a Swiss physician. In 1887 he published the results of his own experiments with contact lenses.
In 1889 a German medical student, August Muller, made public his own experiments with contact lenses.
With advances, by the 1960’s over six million Americans, mostly female, were wearing contact lenses. It wasn?t long after that the idea of a bifocal contact lens was developed and made popular.
Today the bifocal contact lens is a very popular method of vision correction.
The bifocal contact lens is convenient for wearers because they can put the bifocal contact lens in the eye and leave it, without having cumbersome glasses to wear and carry about during the day.
Bifocal contact lens choices include both hard and soft lenses, long time wear and short time wear, and even disposal bifocal contact lens choices that are simply thrown away after use.
Bifocal contact lens wearers can also get their lenses in various tints to change the color of their eyes, allowing cosmetic as well as practical use of the bifocal contact lens.
More popular than ever with so many Americans of the baby boomer generation aging and needing vision correction, the bifocal contact lens is a firm part of the American optometry profession.