Glasses: A Brief History of Vision Correction

At 9 yrs old, my mother realized that I needed glasses. I was squinting to watch TV. My eye exam diagnosis concluded that, in addition to being nearsighted, I had a condition called Keraticonis. It meant that my corneas were slowly eroding around the edges and I could expect to be legally blind by 18 or 19. At the time, the only outlook (no pun intended) was that I would need specifically created contact lenses that would ease the pebbly effect around the edges of my corneas. The disease is called binocular, meaning I had it in both eyes. At 25, the eye doctor was right, I was legally blind...in one eye. The other eye was simply near-sighted with a touch of Astigmatism. Thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, a solution had been found. I underwent a cornea transplant in 2000 that gave me back the sight in my right eye. I thank the Doctors thru history who made such a miracle possible. I also thank the young victim of a motorcycle accident for the cornea I received. Definitely history that deserves to be remembered.

Having myopia and wearing glasses since my early childhood the one invention I praise the most was the invention of the acrylic lens. The day I went from wearing heavy "coke bottle" glasses to the fantastically light lenses was a day of pure liberation!

When I was a kid, and went to pick up my first pair of glasses, I asked "how will I know if they work?" The optometrist, bless him, smiled and told me to turn around and look out the shop window. "Find the furthest point, and focus on it. Ok?" "Ok." "Great; now put your glasses on." And I did. And the world opened up in pure, clean crispness!

I was in first grade before anyone noticed I was blind as the proverbial bat. It was quite a revelation to get my first pair of glasses and realize that I was supposed to be able to see across the room. Now I see toddlers wearing glasses and think, "That's one lucky kid to have adults around who are paying attention."

When I first joined the Military, glasses issued by the Military were often referred to as birth control glasses.

From a 30 yr Optometrist to you, thank you for this. I will be forwarding this lesson to a large group of colleagues on Facebook. I have really enjoyed several of your topics and have learned a lot.

My parents both had paranoid personalities, so when my school teacher told them, she thought, I may need glasses, Dad & Mom said, she must have stock in some glasses manufacturer, so I didn't get an eye checkup or exam, couldn't see the chalkboard, and had to recognize people by the sound of their voice. So, I failed at school. We were middle class, and my parents were good with money and could have provided glasses for me, but I couldn't even get checked. When I was old enough, I went into the Army, and they found that I had 20/200 vision, but it was correctable to 20/20, so I was issued glasses. ...I finally could see. It was amazing. Later in life, I got Lasik surgery, and it was even better!

History Guy is a true visionary. There's more to him than meets the eye. His videos are spec- tacular! 🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓

The history guy can see why this is important

I’m thinking in 2020 virtual classrooms, history teachers just say “here, watch the History Guy” he can tell you more in 15 minutes than I can in an hour LOL!

My school district decided to do eye exams for all students when I was in the 4th grade. The results showed that I was severely myopic (ie. 20/200 left eye; 20/270 right eye). When mom drove me home from the eye doctor with my new glasses, I was amazed that trees had twigs. I had never seen that before. I wish that I had been examined before I entered school, but they didn't do that then. My grades also shot up, now that I could see the blackboard.

Archimedes was widely known to have stolen the idea for his device from one of his assistants but refused to acknowledge the assistant's work or share any of the credit. This was the first known example of the Archimedes' screw.

I was 15 when they finally figured out how bad my vision was. I still remember seeing leaves on trees for the first time.

What an amazing history of vision problems. Born in 1945 my early eyecare was poor and in the 1950's suffered a great deal at school. Thanks for the video.

At the turn of the millennium, the Wall Street Journal published a special edition ranking the 100 most important inventions of the last 1000 years. Their choice for number 1 was eyeglasses

I always enjoy your history "shorts", Thank You. Jack Weatherford in his book "Indian Givers" relates that the ancient Toltec or Aztec peoples would hand grind clear Quartz like mineral stones into a lense. The recipient would visit the grinder every month or so and look through the lense and report his distance vision improvement until corrected. He would then wear the lense like a talisman around his neck to pull out and look through as needed. I mention this because often Indigenous American history is often overlooked or downplayed in modern American and European history books.

Excellent presentation! As a retired inner•city middle school history teacher (30yrs), I love learning more and “seeing” your presentations. “I see” said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and began to saw. 😊👍👓

Didn't see this coming

Interesting about potential mates w/ eyeglasses being selected. Supposedly, John Lennon didn't need glasses, but wore them, so people would see him as an intellectual or at least take him seriously. I noticed, back in the late 1970's and 1980's, that many people from poor backgrounds would buy glasses without corrective lenses to wear, when they got dressed up to go out on the town, hoping to meet a girl. They had to be stylish glasses though. When I was in the Army, they issued us "BCG's" (Birth Control Glasses), which were glasses with frames so out of style at the time, that the opposite sex wouldn't give you the time of day!

I like that some of the images in this video are slightly blurred.