Believe it or not, Leonardo DaVinci is credited with sketching and describing the first idea for a contact lens in 1508.  It was not until hundreds of years later that the first lenses were actually produced and worn on the eye. 

In the mid to late 1800's, German glassblowers and Swiss physicists created the first (barely tolerable) glass lenses placed directly over the eye's surface for the correction of nearsightedness or farsightedness. 

In 1936, New York optometrist William Feinbloom introduced the use of plastic in contact lens manufacturing.  Over the next few decades, these plastic lenses evolved into smaller and thinner lens models, somewhat similar to today's hard contact lenses.  Still uncomfortable and not pleasant to wear, a Czechoslovakian chemist began experimenting with soft, water absorbing plastics to begin the creation of the first soft (hydrogel) contact lenses we know so well today. 

In 1971, Baush & Laumb, one of today's leading contact lens manufacturers, made soft lenses commercially available.  The past few decades have been marked with incredible, constant advancements in soft lens designs and materials, making the bifocal, multifocal, toric, and daily disposable contact lenses of today so common and accessible. 

For more information or an interesting read, go to http://legacy.revoptom.com/contactlens/pdf/clp_3.pdf

Rebecca Mueller, O.D.