Seeing is Believing: a Century to Remember For Medical Science

It’s probably fair to say that medical science has advanced greatly. From the discovery of penicillin by Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming in 1928, to the first human-to-human heart transplantation by South African cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard in 1967, the 20th century certainly saw some major medical breakthroughs.

But whilst there can be no disputing the universal significance of Fleming and Barnard’s scientific advances, there have been a number of other notable medical visionaries that we have a lot to be thankful for, some of whom perhaps don’t receive the credit they deserve.

With many technological inventions, it’s not always easy to give credit to one person, given that it may have been honed and perfected over a period of time. Indeed, there may well have been a number of people who helped to progress the technology over several decades.

Laser eye surgery, for example, has had numerous pioneers over the years. Even before laser surgery was invented, Russian doctor Svyatoslav Fyodorov was performing groundbreaking work in the field of eye surgery - and in 1960, he implanted the first artificial crystalline lens. Dr Fyodorov also developed a surgical technique for myopia, involving very precise incisions near the cornea region.

In the same year that Fyodorov was implanting the first artificial crystalline lens, the American Physicist, Theodore Maiman developed and patented the very first laser. There were a number of other trailblazers who were involved in pioneering research relating to eye surgery and it was a combination of all their efforts that paved the way for the first laser eye surgery in the 1980s.

The excimer laser - invented by Nikolai Basov in 1970 - was initially used for silicone computer chips. But in the 1980s, the potential for using the technology in biological tissue was realised and American physicist Steven Trokel patented the laser for use specifically in corrective eye surgery. And in 1987, the first laser surgery took place on human eyes.

Of course, it would be easy to give Trokel all the credit for inventing laser eye surgery, but that would be doing a massive disservice to all those who contributed before him, laying the foundation for Steven Trokel to help make corrective eye surgery a possibility for millions of people the world over.

There can be little doubt that laser eye surgery has had a major impact in the medical world and has contributed significantly to how we have come to embrace the use of cutting edge technology for countless medical conditions. In fact, it would seem that seeing really is believing in terms of how far we’ve come in recent years.