Tangents
<i>Eyeglasses</i>
Dhaka, 1984. Photo: Ihtisham Kabir
After making a long trip to my favourite library the other day, I discovered that I had forgotten my reading glasses. I struggled to read for a few minutes before giving up in frustration. I recalled an episode of an old TV show – part sci-fi, part suspense – called Twilight Zone. The story was about a man who passionately loved to read, but could never find the time because of his job demands. Then came a cataclysmic disaster which destroyed human civilization except our reader and his favourite library which remained intact. The reader was ecstatic as he prepared to spend the rest of his life reading. But, as he gathered favourite books to read, his reading glasses – the last remaining pair on earth - accidentally fell and shattered into a thousand pieces, leaving him with free time and books but without the ability to read them. Where did the eyeglass, no doubt a great enabler of progress, come from? It was invented in Italy in the thirteenth century. Much earlier, the ever-practical Romans had a simple solution for failing eyesight: they commanded their slaves to read out loud. The Chinese apparently wore glasses on special occasions, but they were intended to shield the eyes from evil forces and not for reading. Real eyeglasses started appearing in European paintings in the fourteenth century. The first eyeglass lenses were made from quartz because precise glassmaking for optical purposes was unknown. These early specimens were poorly designed from the user's viewpoint. They lacked the two sidepieces and simply sat on the nose, which varies in size, shape and firmness from person to person. Their centre of gravity was too far forward and they kept falling off. The bad design survived for over three centuries. In order to keep their eyeglasses on, the Spaniards tried ropes of silk attached to the frames which looped around the ears, and the Chinese attached metal or ceramic weights to strings tied to the glasses which hung behind the ears. Finally British opticians invented the familiar sidepieces that fit atop the ears. The monocle – a single eyeglass that was held in place by the eye muscles – became popular in the 1800s, but today it is usually worn by German generals in war movies. The lorgnette was the eyeglass on a handle that fashionable ladies – who found normal eyeglasses unfashionable – wore in the 19th century. The pince-nez is a throwback to earlier times – the glasses balance on the nose without the sidepieces. The pince-nez is also a favourite of moviemakers because it lends an air of intensity to the wearer. The great American inventor Benjamin Franklin who travelled widely was irritated by the need for two separate eyeglasses for reading and for viewing distant landscapes from his carriage. So he invented the bifocal lens in the 1780s. The idea of contact lenses had been around for several centuries, but modern contact lenses were invented by Czech opticians in 1959. Like many other essentials of modern life, today's eyeglasses serve our needs silently and effectively. But it made a long journey to reach this stage
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