WEARING GLASSES

By joemasonspage on June 30, 2024

The production of lenses was just getting going in the 14th century; one of the early examples is the picture of St Matthew wearing reading glasses on the medieval rood screen in Cawston church. Reading glasses are relatively simple to make (compared to distant glasses). These require convex lenses, so longsighted people were more fortunate than short sighted people. By the 15th century lens grinders has discovered how to make concave lenses.

Myopia (short sight) is treated with these concave lenses, and these are harder to make than convex ones. These lenses were not commonly available until the late 18th century. In London Dr Johnson does not appear to have had access to the glasses he required for his myopia. None of the pictures that I have seen of him show him wearing glasses. Being a great literary figure, hypermetropia (long sight) would have been an even greater disability for Johnson, as he would have had to hold his books as far away as his arms would reach, to read them. This would have caused him much difficulty.

Presbyopia occurs with the advancing age of the sufferer; it makes the eyes unable to focus properly-technically called a lack of accommodation. This is why I now wear Varifocal lenses. Before the complex finishing process was developed to make these lenses possible, the use of bifocal or trifocal lenses provided a similar effect. It is the middle-aged who begin to need this correction to their sight. It is possible that St Matthew was suffering from middle-aged lack of accommodation; his balding head certainly suggests a man who is no longer in the prime of youth.

The first known picture of a person wearing glasses was painted by Tommaso da Modena (1352). One of his is frescoes is of a monk copying a manuscript while wearing spectacle lenses balance on his nose. The development of the profession of optician was a relative late progression. The Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers was established in 1629, but although this body became the principal authority that nurtured the growth of the profession, its principal concern was originally with the grinding of lenses rather than the needs of the visually impaired.