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The Crazy Carnival Ride Soviet Turntable Procedure That Gave Us the First Corrective Eye Surgery

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Manage episode 518273911 series 2062795
Content provided by Cloud10. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Cloud10 or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

The eyes, they say, are the windows to the soul. More practically, they are our windows to the world, humans being one of many visually-dependent species on the planet. But they are also fragile windows, susceptible to all sorts of injuries, diseases, and disorders. Worldwide, over 2 billion people - nearly a third of the world’s population - suffer from some sort of visual impairment, ranging from mild glaucoma and cataracts to complete blindness. Of these, 88.4 million suffer from mild, easily correctable refractive errors such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. For much of history, the only solution to such impairments was corrective lenses, but more recent years have seen the rise of advanced surgical corrective technology such as LASIK. Thanks to such safe, quick, and relatively painless and inexpensive procedures, thousands of people are able to enjoy perfect vision without the hassle of glasses or contact lenses. But no technology appears fully-formed overnight, and LASIK and its relatives owe their existence to a bizarre procedure developed in 1970s Soviet Russia which involved an assembly-line team of surgeons, diamond scalpels, and a rotating operating table that looked more like a carnival ride than a piece of medical equipment. This is the story of Radial Keratotomy, the world’s first successful corrective eye surgery.

Author: Gilles Messier

Editor: Daven Hiskey

Host: Simon Whistler

Producer: Samuel Avila

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  continue reading

141 episodes

Artwork
iconShare
 
Manage episode 518273911 series 2062795
Content provided by Cloud10. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Cloud10 or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

The eyes, they say, are the windows to the soul. More practically, they are our windows to the world, humans being one of many visually-dependent species on the planet. But they are also fragile windows, susceptible to all sorts of injuries, diseases, and disorders. Worldwide, over 2 billion people - nearly a third of the world’s population - suffer from some sort of visual impairment, ranging from mild glaucoma and cataracts to complete blindness. Of these, 88.4 million suffer from mild, easily correctable refractive errors such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. For much of history, the only solution to such impairments was corrective lenses, but more recent years have seen the rise of advanced surgical corrective technology such as LASIK. Thanks to such safe, quick, and relatively painless and inexpensive procedures, thousands of people are able to enjoy perfect vision without the hassle of glasses or contact lenses. But no technology appears fully-formed overnight, and LASIK and its relatives owe their existence to a bizarre procedure developed in 1970s Soviet Russia which involved an assembly-line team of surgeons, diamond scalpels, and a rotating operating table that looked more like a carnival ride than a piece of medical equipment. This is the story of Radial Keratotomy, the world’s first successful corrective eye surgery.

Author: Gilles Messier

Editor: Daven Hiskey

Host: Simon Whistler

Producer: Samuel Avila

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  continue reading

141 episodes

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