Eyeglasses and Lenses Used After Cataract Surgery in the 16th Century

In Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff says “the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass!” Burning glasses were a specific kind of lens, that allowed you to harness the sun’s rays to create fire. They were a predesessor on the road to later lens construction that allowed for the convex shape which allows someone to create prescription glasses. In Shakespeare’s lifetime, a specific kind of spectacles known as aphakic spectacles were prescriped as a matter of routine in post operative care for someone that underwent a cataract surgery .Paintings from this tim period show a variety of spectacles and eyewear that were used in this time period, and Shakespeare’s plays themselves reveal the cultural impression of glasses and how they were perceived. Here today to explain the development of lenses form Shakespeare’s lifetime, the post operative care for cataract surgery in particular, and to tell us more about special lenses like “burning glasses” and “reading stones” are our guests and ophthalmological historians, Chris Leffler and Charles Letocha.   

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