Some of the most famous names in history worked on trying to improve vision, mostly because of personal inconvenience.

Pre 1000 BC: The Chinese used sandbags to flatten the eye to correct low levels of short sight. This temporary correction allowed hunters to hunt in the mornings before the effect wore off rather like today's orthokeratology (overnight contact lenses).

The Empreror Nero may have been the first person ever to have kind of sunglasses. He used a cut emerald or ruby attached to his thumb to look at objects. He may have also been short sighted, we are not sure.

In the Middle Ages Roger Bacon in England described lenses used for reading.

At roughly the same time Marco Polo travelled to the court of Kublai Khan and described how engravers cut quartz and rock crystal for the elderly to wear to correct their sight. These may have been the first reading glasses.

On a 15th century picture of Pope Leo X in Venice he is portrayed with spectacles for short sight.

Leonardo da Vinci also tried to tackle the problems of sight. In 1508 he described a kind of “contact lens”. He suggested immersing the eye in a miniature bowl containing water.

Descartes recognised that Leonardo’s idea wasn’t very practical and suggested a cone shaped glass on the eye.

The first person to suggest the correct shape for such a contact lens was de la Hire in 1685.

Benjamin Franklin in 1775 designed and made bifocal lenses that he used himself and it may have helped him to  work on the American Constitution.

In 1827 the first astigmatic lenses were made in Ipswich.

In the meantime surgical techniques improved sufficiently that in the 18th century surgeons started removing cataracts. In the late 19th century  the first attempts were made to correct astigmatism and short sight surgically.

Schiotz carried out surgery for astigmatism in 1860, similar to today‘s AK (astigmatic keratotomy) and limbal relaxing incisions. He is often described as the first refractive surgeon.

In 1949 Harold Ridley and Peter Choyce (who later became an associate surgeon of the LCRS) pioneered the first intra-ocular lens implants. Since then this procedure has given back the sight of over 200 million people.

In 1961 the first soft contact lenses were invented by Wichterle in Czechoslovakia.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Fyodorov and Durnev in the Soviet Union performed the first modern version of surgery for short sight.

In 1978 and the early 1980s the Fyodorov method was adopted and modified by US surgeons, and was renamed Incisional (Diamond) Microsurgery.

In the mid 1970s new methods were tried to correct long sight. These involved keratoplasty (changing the shape of cornea without cutting, such as heat) or other methods.

In the mid 1980s IOLs, similar to cataract lens implants, were first used successfully to correct vision in very highly short-sighted people by Georges Baikoff. The person’s lens remained in the eye and an additional lens was inserted, like a permanent contact lens. Today the LCRS uses these kinds of lenses and was of the  pioneers  them in the UK  in 1999 having trained with Peter Choyce in 1989. Many others have now copied us.

1988 first excimer lasers were used in keratectomy (reshaping the cornea by removing tissue) and the LCRS was involved with early trials. There are several alternatives to overcome the problems of operating over the visual zone and having to lift a layer of tissue before using the laser. These were PRK in 1988, LASIK in 1992 and LASEK in 1999. Improvements in this type of technology are very rapid, but may turn out to be a surgical blind alley if the fundamental problems cannot be overcome. The large 9mm cut over three quarters of the front of the eye, which can be lifted years later, can be associated with irreversible scarring and lead to long term dry eyes. The depth of the cut is also highly variable.

	It's great. I can see. I am a keyboard player in a rock band. Glasses didn't suit my image and contacts were really uncomfortable when it got smoky. A year later I still can't believe how good it is.

In the mid 1990s Presbyopia  treatments by implants in the white of the eye, away from the lens are invented and used.

In the mid 1990s disposable contact lenses became widespread because of their reliable quality and affordability. This has cut down the dangers associated with contact lenses significantly, although the quality of vision remains behind ordinary contact lenses or lens implants.

More history:

http://www.mrcophth.com/Historyofophthalmology/introduction.htm
http://www.healthyeyes.org.uk/index.php?id=108