Glasses have been used for centuries to help people see better, but what people have wanted for years was the ability to see perfectly without the hassle of having to wear glasses or contact lenses. Fortunately, in the last couple of decades, doctors and scientists have figured out how to give people the perfect vision they want with corrective eye surgery. Refractive surgery can be performed on patients who have less than perfect eyesight and are seeking to change that. It can improve vision so the patient no longer has a need for glasses or contacts. The history of this surgery is an interesting one that dates back over 100 years and involves several dedicated individuals.
The idea of eye surgery has been around for a very long time. In 1898, J. Lans of the Netherlands used rabbits during experiments with eye surgery. His goal was to perfect vision, and his method involved flattening the cornea to do this. Unfortunately, this didn’t work well as he had hoped. T. Sato, however, was working in Tokyo in 1933 and realized that this method for improving vision had some merit. He did it in a slightly different way, however, and had better results, but he was unable to perfect the procedure. When contact lenses were introduced, Sato ended his eye surgery tests. B.S. Yenaliev in the Soviet Union, however, continued to study using some of the research that Sato had conducted. While he learned a great deal, he was unable to perfect the procedure as well. It was not until 1989 at the Barraquer Institute where the ability to actually fix the eye with refractive surgery was actually discovered.
Now corrective eye surgery is not only possible, it is something that people are getting done regularly. Thanks to the introduction of lasers into these procedures, people are now able to see perfectly with just a quick surgery to help them get the perfect vision they’ve been wanting. Refractive surgery is truly a miracle of modern science, and even though it took a long time for the dream to be realized, it now is something that has changed many lives.
