Spectacles or eyeglasses

Spectacles (UK) or eyeglasses (US) are a pair of lenses fitted in a frame and worn in front of the eyes to correct or assist defective vision.

The first spectacles were worn by short-sighted people in Nineveh in around 600BC. They were magnifying lenses which were made not of glass, but of polished rock crystal, which were an inch and a half in diameter.

The near-sighted Roman emperor Nero used a form of glasses (a jewel with curved facets) to get a closer view of gladiatorial exchanges.

The friar, Roger Bacon may have been one of the first Westerners to uses lenses to help him see more clearly. Part five of his famous treatise Opus Majus (1267) was solely dedicated to optics. He discussed and contemplated the anatomy of the eye and brain, and the physiology of eyesight as well as the factors affecting sight. Bacon also wrote about the effects that lenses had on magnifying objects. In part six of his work the friar foresaw inventions such as spectacles, telescopes and microscopes.

The first known eyeglasses were being made in Northern Italy by the late 13th century (the inventor is unknown). These first spectacles were for correcting farsightedness and were held in the hand.

The Glasses Apostle by Conrad von Soest (1403)

Friar Alessandro della Spina of Pisa (d. 1313) was the first known European to wear and make eyeglasses. The Ancient Chronicle of the Dominican Monastery of St. Catherine in Pisa records: "Eyeglasses, having first been made by someone else, who was unwilling to share them, he [Spina] made them and shared them with everyone with a cheerful and willing heart.

The earliest pictorial evidence for the use of eyeglasses is Tommaso da Modena's 1352 portrait of the cardinal Hugh de Provence reading in a scriptorium.

 Tommaso da Modena's 1352 portrait

The invention of reading glasses combined with that of the mechanical clock had a huge impact on business. Quite suddenly, late 13th century Europeans were able to look through their glasses at the church clock and work out whether they were late for meetings-one of the reasons why the West began to power ahead of China and the Muslim world.

Early eye glasses were used by short-sighted monks used early eye glasses to read manuscripts. At first, they held the lenses in front of their eyes and the two lenses were joined by some kind of hinge. Experimentation followed regarding various methods of fixing the glasses to the head. Long strips of metal were used, leading from the bridge of the nose over the center of the head and down to the neck, but this was found to be too unwieldy and awkward. Further attempts followed involving straps, hat attachments and chains with weights on the end. A stiffer hinge was developed enabling the lenses to rest precariously on the nose.

Spanish writer Francisco de Quevedo (1580–1645), with "nose spectacles"

Following the invention of the printing press and the increased availability of books, the demand for spectacles increased. In England a charter was granted in 1629 to a guild of spectacle makers.

It wasn't until the 1720s that the solution was found to the centuries old problem of how to attach glasses to the head - a stiffer hinge was developed enabling the lenses to rest precariously on the nose. It was English optician Edward Scarlett who first used arms to clip spectacles round the ears sometime before 1727. Soon these less cumbersome spectacles were in common use.

Eyeglass designer James Ayscough first introduced tinted spectacles in 1752. He  felt that clear glass creates a glaring light that is bad for the eyes.

The American scientist and politician Benjamin Franklin suffered from both myopia and presbyopia. Tired of constantly taking his eyeglasses on and off to read he decided to make a pair of spectacles which would let him enjoy both the beautiful scenery and his treasured books when travelling. He cut two pairs of spectacles in two and put each lens into a single frame, thus inventing the first pair of bifocal spectacles for long-sighted people.

Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton invented underwater spectacles so he could read in the bath.

William Henry "Will" White was an American baseball pitcher who played for the Cincinnati Reds in the National League (1878–1880) and the Cincinnati Red Stockings in the American Association (1882–1886). He is remembered as the first, and for many years only, major league player to wear eyeglasses on the baseball field.

Will White

Until the early 20th century spectacle wearers were stereotyped as elderly, or physically weak and passive. The stigma began to fall away when the esteemed US president Theodore Roosevelt was regularly photographed wearing eyeglasses, and the following decade when popular comedian Harold Lloyd began wearing a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles as the "Glasses" character in his silent movies.

Wearing glasses actually increases a political candidate's electoral success, despite many politicians avoiding them as they think it makes them look less attractive.

Today, an estimated 75 per cent of UK adults sports a pair of specs.

More than 100-million Americans wear glasses.

Simply washing your spectacle lenses with soapy water prevents them from fogging when you wear a face mask. This is a common technique used by surgeons and others in the operating theater.

Source Trioo