The Section on Cornea, Contact Lenses and Refractive Technologies is both the oldest and largest specialty section of the American Academy of Optometry. Click here to read the full detailed history of the Section through December 2008: American Academy of Optometry Section on Cornea, Contact Lenses and Refractive Technologies History (Word DOC format)
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SECTION ON CORNEA, CONTACT LENSES AND REFRACTIVE TECHNOLOGIES
On January 11, 1922, nine optometrists and two physicians met at the Planters Hotel in St. Louis for the purpose of developing an organization for the "optometric study in higher branches and for exchange of ideas in optometric work." Morris Steinfeld, the organizer of the group, was elected temporary chairman. A second organizational meeting was held at the Claypoole Hotel in Indianapolis.
On June 29, 1922, the American Academy of Optometry (AAO) was officially formed with Morris Steinfield as Chairman, C. S. Brown as Vice-Chair, and Carel C. Koch as Secretary/Treasurer. The stated goals of the newly formed AAO were to raise the standards of optometric practice, education, and ethics.
The First Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Optometry was held at the American Annex Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri on December 9-13, 1922. At this inaugural meeting, papers were presented, luncheons and dinners were held, business sessions were conducted, and officers were elected much in the same way they are today. The same officers were reelected for another term with the only addition being E.E. Fielding as the Treasurer.
The roots of the Section can be traced back to the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting held at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, December 10-12, 1944. A proposal to incorporate special sections in contact lenses and orthoptics was put forth and adopted. The formation of these early sections had great historical significance because they would eventually lead to the development of the "diplomate" status within the Academy.
It was three years later at the 26th Annual AAO Meeting, held at the Palmer House in Chicago, December 13-16, 1947, that the Contact Lens Section took the first step towards establishing itself. John C. Neill, the first CLS Chairman, proposed the creation of an examining board to qualify Academy members who desired to become a contact lens specialist. The Executive Council carefully considered this proposal, and voted unanimously to establish this examining board. Academy members who passed the qualifications drawn up by this examining board were to be awarded diplomas certifying their ability to fit contact lenses. Appointees to this examining board were to be faculty members of optometric schools who taught contact lens fitting.
Considering contact lenses were still relatively new and the number of optometrists fitting them relatively small, the idea of declaring contact lenses fitting a specialty must have met with mixed reactions. From 1935 to 1939, at least 10,000 pairs of contact lenses, all made of glass, were sold in the United States.
Plastic began to be used in the contact lens industry in 1937 with William Feinbloom’s combination glass corneal section/plastic scleral section contact lenses. The U series of 1937 was followed by the T series in 1940. In 1938, Theodore Obrig discovered the advantages of using black light observations with a two percent aqueous solution of fluorescein in the fitting of scleral fluid or fluidless contact lenses.
In 1939, plastic polymethylmethacrylate contact lenses were introduced into the United States by either Mr. Theodore Obrig, Mr. Ernest Muller, or Istvan Gyorrfy, MD. Solon (Bud) Braff and Edward Goodlaw were early pioneers who worked closely associated with Kevin Tuohy and Phil Salvatori in the development of fitting scleral lenses. Braff’s discovery that scleral lenses could be fit without anesthesia and Goodlaw’s observations that contact lenses affected the osmotic character of the corneal epithelium (causing the corneal edema) laid the groundwork for the eventual transition from the scleral to the corneal lens as the design of choice.
The introduction of PMMA simplified the fitting of both scleral and corneal contact lenses. Its only drawback was its impermeability to oxygen and carbon dioxide. Had it not been for this shortcoming, today’s RGP lenses probably would never have come into existence. The Tuohy lens received its patent on June 6, 1950. After the Tuohy lens was introduced in 1948, the attention slowly shifted away from the scleral lens to the corneal lens.
In 1946, 50,000 pairs of lenses were sold. By 1949, these numbers increased to 200,000 pairs--primarily due to the introduction of the Tuohy lens. By today’s standards, it is difficult to imagine that this lens design would revolutionized the contact lens field. Tuohy’s lens was large (11.5mm to 12.5mm), thick, fit flat (2.50D to 6.00D flatter than flat K), and had blunt edges. It is important to understand that the CLS was founded during the mid-to-late 40's, and to understand how difficult it must have been for the early founders of the Section to persevere in the early stages of the development of contact lenses.