Word: lensed
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...Boom. Foreshadowed by Leonardo da Vinci in 1508, contact lenses were first made in Europe in the 1880s. They were big, covering most of the sclera (the white of the eye), heavy (made of glass), hard to fit and forbiddingly expensive. Early plastic lenses were also of the big scleral type, had to float on a bath of special wetting fluid, and could be worn only four to five hours at a stretch. Then came the methyl-methacrylate plastics (of the Plexiglas family), the discovery that fluid was unnecessary if lenses had a hole to permit tears to pass beneath...
Equally anxious to clear up the business is the American Optometric Association, which last week had sent out to members 50,000 copies of a frank, sensible booklet, "What Everyone Asks About Contact Lenses." Key points: no matter how well fitted, the contact lens is a "foreign body" in the eye, so the wearer must "learn to tolerate this intruder just as one must learn to wear false teeth." This may mean a week or two of varying discomfort, for some patients a month or more. Rare indeed are the happy individuals who can pop lenses into their eyes, feel...
Vanity & Sport. Grinding the tiny, feather-light plastic lenses is technically so difficult that eye practitioners do not attempt it themselves, leave it to specially equipped laboratories. These labs do not sell directly to the public, so they remain unknown, though Chicago's Plastic Contact Lens Co., the giant in the field, has made more than 4,000,000 pairs in ten years. Average price to ophthalmologists and optometrists: $50 to $60 a pair. After fair charges for examinations, fittings and corrections, the practitioner may collect $150 to $300 from an average patient. Those with special problems must expect...
* Natural black pearls and natural canary diamonds are rare. A black pearl four-tenths of an inch in diameter is worth up to $7,500 compared to $350 for a culture white pearl dyed black. A large canary diamond (not to be confused with off-color or cheap "yellow" diamonds...
The picture itself is just a wide-screen ("Totalscope") travelogue filmed two years ago in Red China by Italy's globetrotting Count Leonardo Bonzi (Green Magic, Lost Continent). At times the DeLuxe color photography by Pierludovico Pavoni and Alesandro d'Eva is magnificent. (Best scene: a mistily magical...