That cataract lens is a highly engineered piece of plastic.
And the story of cataracts is the story of a revolution in materials.
That story introduces the story of joint replacement.
(I hadn't thought much about this before)
The first cataract lenses were made from Perspex.
Perspex, a plastic made by the British chemicals company ICI
Was only trademarked in the early 1930s.
Perspex was the new lightweight material of the time,
And it was used in the 2nd World War in..
The windscreens of Spitfire airplanes.
Spitfire pilots got eye splinters from the windscreens.
(can you imagine..)
An observant English ophthalmologist spotted:
Perspex was biocompatible.
That keen observation led to the first Perspex lens..
Put into a human eye in 1949.
An innovative new material finding a new use.
Nice story, but what’s that got to do with joint replacement?
Well.. Perspex is a synthetic polymer, polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA)
That might not mean much to most people.
But at that point most orthopaedic surgeons go..
‘Ahhh..!’ ..polymethylmethacrylate or PMMA is bone cement.
PMMA found uses in
Plastic surgery and
Dentistry to fix teeth.
AND a few years later in the late 1950s:
Sir John Charnley was trying to work out..
How to fix a stainless-steel stem into the femoral bone..?
AND he came across Perspex bone cement.
PMMA is the cement that fixes joint replacements to bone to this day.
