A Short, Somewhat Brief, Yet Entertaining History Of Bifocals

The Year 1784. That year Benjamin Franklin invented bifocal lenses. Although he is known for a great many significant and history-altering inventions and discoveries, the creation of bifocals, is nonetheless important. Just ask all the people whose daily lives are immeasurably improved by them! Prepare to learn more about bifocal history than you thought possible.

Popular canon has it that Benjamin Franklin, growing old, and increasingly weary of having to constantly switch between two pairs of eye glasses for his varying sight needs, grafted two different prescriptions (at the time, two lenses) into one frame, allowing him to see far or near distances simply by looking through either the top or bottom portion of the lens. His invention, however, would only officially be announced on May 23rd, 1785. Although credited with their discovery, it is considered plausible that Franklin may have come across the design some years earlier, perhaps even as early as 1760, while still in London.

In 1884, B.M. Hanna attained the patent on what was known as 'cemented' and 'perfection' bifocals but these were overly fragile; susceptible to dirt particles, becoming stuck in the joints and were, in a word, ugly. In 1908, the fusing of lenses (instead of being cemented), was patented by Dr. John Borsch, Jr. Not two years later, the first one piece bifocal lens was created. Over the years bifocal lenses were progressively improved upon until by the early 1980s, the first bifocal contact lenses came onto the market.

And there you have it, an all too brief history of bifocal lenses. It's sometimes great to be able to look back and reflect on what hundreds of years of human endeavor have brought us, don't you think? Don't think about it too long though, 'cos you're going to need plenty of time to peruse the mountain of links to the right-side of this page. Great prices and wide selection of eye wear and eye care products can be found there: now that should be something worth learning about!

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