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Saturday 8 February 2014

Cataract

Cataract operations were being performed in India as far back as 900 BC.

In ancient Babylonia the fees of eye surgeons were fixed by law, based on the status of the patient. A successful operation on a rich freeman cost ten shekels of silver whilst the same operation on a slave was priced at two shekels.

The ancient Greek cure for cataracts was to pour hot broken glass into the eyes.

Syringe devices was first used in the 9th century, when an Egyptian surgeon used a glass suction tube to remove cataracts from a patient.

Magnified view of a cataract seen on examination with a slit lamp. Rakesh Ahuja, MD. Wikipedia
Galileo Galilei irreversibly damaged his retinas by looking at the Sun and its sunspots for too long and in his last years cataracts robbed him completely of sight.

At London's Zoological Gardens the first successful operation was performed on a grizzly bear on November 5, 1850 to remove cataracts from both eyes.

The cataract eye disease is estimated to have blinded more than 25 million people worldwide.

1 comment:

  1. Hey, thank you for sharing this information with us. Here you can also visit for more information about cataract or cataract surgery.

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