Sunday 15th anniversary of contact lenses inventor Wichterle

Sunday marks the 15th anniversary of the death of the Czech scientist Otto Wichterle, inventor of modern soft contact lenses. Wichterle, who was born in Prostějov, South Moravia in 1913, produced the first contact lenses in the early 1960s on an apparatus made from a Merkur children’s building kit. The Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (CSAS) sold the patent to an American company and actual mass production of contacts began in the US. Wichterle himself became head of the CSAS after the Velvet Revolution.

Author: Ian Willoughby