Eyesight continues to worsen across the world. While more of the global population ages, younger generations spend more time looking at screens, and everyone in between becomes more aware of various vision issues, so as a result, and increasing number of people are now either getting diagnosed with common conditions like myopia (nearsightedness) or wanting to actively prevent and treat these diseases.
Fortunately, modern medical advancements in eye care mean optometrists and ophthalmologists are adequately equipped to meet rising demand. Now worth more than $70.78 billion, today’s eye care market boasts the continuous release of innovative products like smart eyewear. Simultaneously, researchers regularly hit breakthroughs allowing eye professionals to streamline and improve the effectiveness of various treatments, including surgery. It’s thus safe to say that, now more than ever, we have plenty of ways to safeguard our vision for longer.
But how did we get here in the first place? Read on for a deeper dive into the history of eye care and the advancements that help us better care for our eyes today.
From prehistoric times to the Middle Ages
The earliest evidence for the practice of eye care dates all the way back to Mesopotamia and Egypt. Here, documents like the Code of Hammurabi and the Ebers Papyrus detailed treatments for various conditions, including those we now know as pterygium and cataracts. The ancient civilizations of Greece, India, and Rome furthered humanity’s knowledge of the eye’s anatomy and introduced the use of surgical instruments for vision-correcting procedures. Meanwhile, members of the social elite—including Emperor Nero—began using crystals like emeralds to magnify the texts they were reading.
Around 1,500 years ago, indigenous peoples went even further by coming up with the first means of protective eyewear. Probably the most notable example comes from the Inuit, who invented snow goggles. Crafted with commonly-found materials like ivory, antler, and whalebone, these used small slits to limit one’s vision and protect them from the sun’s glare bouncing off snow.
By the Middle Ages, most royal households in the Arab Empire had a dedicated Kahhlal or oculist. These professionals were highly regarded during that time, thanks to their refinement of the “crude” eye care practices introduced by the Ancient Greeks and Romans. However, the invention of corrective eyeglasses themselves took place further away. Experts estimate that they were first invented by Italian monks in the 1200s, which is why Venice emerged as one of the first major manufacturing centers for eyeglasses.
Following the Renaissance
The Renaissance is famous for advancing everything from arts and politics to scientific knowledge, which is why it’s no surprise that eye care significantly progressed during this time. Thanks to the invention of the microscope in the late 1500s, researchers were able to learn more about the eyes and their various components, and Renaissance-era ophthalmologists were eventually able to diagnose diseases like glaucoma.
At the same time, influential figures like Georg Joseph Beer and Baron Michael Johann Baptist de Wenzel—who served as the oculist of King George III of England—founded and legitimized cataract removal as a surgical treatment. Woodcuts from the Ophthalmodouleia, the first German ophthalmic textbook, indicate that cataract surgery spawned further procedures for addressing other external conditions like ulcers. The book’s illustrations also imply that eye consultations became more commonplace during this time.
Entering the modern era
As time went on, modern discoveries and technological advancements helped streamline eye care treatments and make eyewear more readily accessible. In the 1800s, Hermann von Helmholtz invented the direct ophthalmoscope and helped significantly enhance the ophthalmologist’s diagnostic capabilities. Over in the UK, Sir William Bowman founded what’s now known as the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, which hosted conferences where professionals could introduce and suggest new ways to improve eye care procedures. Come the 20th century, Swiss ophthalmologist Jules Gonin perfected retinal detachment surgery, and Gerhard Meyer-Schwickerath invented light coagulation—which led to the first use of laser surgery in eye care.
During this time, manufacturers also found ways to use plastic lenses rather than glass or crystal for eyewear, making both corrective glasses and protective sunglasses cheaper to produce and thus more accessible to the general public. This innovation allowed them to add more technologies to a single lens. A great example of this lies in Edwin Land’s invention of instant photography in the 1940s. Though not directly related to eye care, the design of Land’s now-famous Polaroid camera involved the use of sheet polarizers, which eyewear manufacturers eventually leveraged to produce polarized sunglasses. These are considered the modern counterpart to the Inuit’s snow goggles, as they use specialized filters to more effectively block the sun’s glare.
Integrating cutting-edge technologies
Today, technology is progressing faster than ever, and eye care is benefitting from that enormously. One of the primary ways it’s being used is to improve access to eyewear through remote features. Now, the most common eye conditions—and, in particular, refractive errors like myopia—can be measured via smartphone apps like Warby Parker’s Virtual Vision Test. Using the app, consumers can receive their prescription and select the best-fitting eyewear for them at home by utilizing a glasses frames for face shape tool. Costa Del Mar uses this website feature to scan the face and take unique measurements that ensure a personalized fit, allowing customers to more closely replicate the process of buying eyeglasses in person. Along with eyewear retailers now offering options for online purchases and direct-to-home shipping, these features make eyeglasses and sunglasses increasingly accessible to those with mobility issues or who live in rural areas.
At the same time, constant eye care research means surgical procedures improve all the time. Today, ophthalmologists can go beyond simply removing cataracts—they can also replace clouded lenses with artificial ones to restore clear vision to patients. Laser surgery is now also so minimally invasive that the immediate recovery period has shortened to six to 12 hours after the procedure. Now that we’ve entered the Age of AI, the eye care industry is seeing even more potential for growth. In particular, researchers recently discovered that the emerging technology can power tools that measure inflammation in the eye caused by anti-VEGF drugs, which usually occurs when treating age-related macular degeneration. The study concluded that, given the up to 81% accuracy rate of the machine learning model it used, AI can effectively empower ophthalmologists to make better treatment decisions to prevent permanent vision loss in patients.
