Professor Otto Wichterle (person)

Many of us have this man to thank for liberating us from thick glasses, being called four eyes, and having permanent indentations around the bridge of the nose.

He invented the soft contact lens, and I for one will be forever grateful.

Born in 1913 in the town of Prostejov, in Northern Moravia, Wichterle survived two World Wars, Nazi occupation, and the onset of Communism, becoming a leader among leaders in polymer science by the age of forty.

First Things First

Wichterle didn't get into opthamology until later in his career. He started as a very well-educated chemical engineer.

• 1934: Wichterle enters the Prague Institute of Chemical Technology Engineering.
• 1936: He receives his doctorate, and stays on at the university working as an assistant to his mentor, Professor Votocek.
• 1939: November. Bunches of guys wearing gray and shouting a lot close the universities, and redecorate Prague in swaztikas. Wichterle relocates to Zlin.
• 1940: Heading a team researching polyamides, Wichterle develops the manufacturing process of caprolactam and its derivative, known as Nylon 6. It's industrial applications are many, the result of a high strength-to-weight ratio, its stability, and resistance to abrasion.
• 1941: Wichterle produces the first laboratory-scale polyamide fibers suitable for spinning. The potential industrial applications are sufficient for Wichterle to keep the invention secret from the German war machine for the duration of the war.

I've Got One Word. Plastics.

The post-war economy was not quite ready to support the release of spinnable Nylon 6, so Wichterle did what many others do in a poor economy, even today. He went back to school.

• 1945: Wichterle reenters the Institute at Prague, and completes a second doctorate in organic chemistry.
• 1949: His studies are expanded to incorporate the technology of plastics, for which he creates and heads a new department.

Strangers on a Train

It was not until 1952 that Wichterle's interest in plastics crossed over into the world of opthamology.

While travelling by rail from Oloumoc to Prague he spotted a man reading a magazine on the subject, and, as he writes in his autobiography:

'...came up with the suggestion of using slightly cross-linked hydrophilic three-dimensional polymers for better compatibility over metal prosthesis used as a substitution for enucleated bulbs.'

Well, obviously. The man was clearly a master of light conversation. But what he came upon in that moment was the idea of water-swellable gels, for use mainly in medicine, with the additional potential of application to eye-care.

He filed a patent on such gels within a year.

Prize on the Eyes

Wichterle went to work immediately, and in not too much time developed a polyhydroxyethylmethacrylate gel--natch--that was 40% water and totally transparent.

But getting the goo was the easy part. The trouble was how to shape it for wearing on the eyes.

He started with polystyrene molds and made some headway, but the lenses would always have irregular (read painful) edges and would often tear with the opening of the mold. It wasn't until 1957 that he made one he deemed worthy of making himself a guinea pig over.

In the several seconds of excruciating pain he was able to endure, he found a focal distance, and called the project a success.

Seeing Red

The newly named University of Chemical Technology came quite undesirably to the attention of the Communist Regime in the 1950s, and Wichterle once more wound up on the wrong side of the reigning authorities. In 1958, during the latest political purge, he was forced to leave the school, and research was temporarily halted.

Work At Home and Make Millions!

Something here about necessity being the mother of invention.

• 1959: Wichterle gets new day job at the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry. Research in plastics continues.
• Christmas 1961: When off the company clock, Wichterle uses glass molds, a mechano set and a generator from his son's bicycle to build a casting machine in his garage.

He makes the first four regular soft contact lenses, and applies them to patients at a local hospital. The wearers suffer no irritation, but they can't see anything either, because of the high refraction.

Wichterle has to correct this with spectacles, but it's progress nonetheless.

• New Year's, 1961: The machine is much improved by the addition of a multiple axes and a reconfigured gramophone set for increased power. One week sees the production of several hundred lenses.
• 1962: Lens production is tripled.
• 1963: Wichterle runs into George Nissel, master of lathing instruments and maker of hard lenses. The two put their heads together and came up with the idea of turning the poly-Hema plastic on a lathe before swelling. The new technique gets a new patent and the name 'xerogel'.

Visions of Greatness

It took a couple of Americans to get Wichterle out of the garage and into the world of big business.

• 1964: Martin Pollack and Jerry Feldman, operators of the National Patent Development Corporation, get their hooks on Wichterle with a mind toward turning his cottage industry into international moneymaker.

They sublicensed the technology to several companies in the United States and Europe.

Over the next few years, the company continued to refine the process with the professor's help, and set up manufacturing of their own. They started selling lenses in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, China, Great Britain, Spain, Italy and Holland.

The Eyes Have It

Wichterle made a mint with his invention, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, he finally managed to step forward without fear of being disappeared.

He was elected chairman of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, but only held the post for three years--until the the country split up.

Wichterle died five years later, in 1998.