Word: scleral
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Dates: during 1960-1960
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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...
Esther Williams, who is myopic, wears them out of the water but does not bother with them when immersed. Swimmers who need correction for reasons other than myopia usually wear the bigger scleral lens because it is harder to dislodge under water. Skindivers who use scuba favor contacts because spectacles, however ingeniously installed, are cumbersome inside a watertight face mask...
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