Hurricanes and Cataracts

摘要

Gordon "mouse" cleaver was one of the first Royal Air Force aces of World War Ⅱ, but his most indelible mark on history was inadvertently inspiring a surgical procedure that has saved the sight of hundreds of millions of people. Cataracts-natural clouding of the lens of the eye-are the most common cause of blindness. For thousands of years, the only treatment was an excruciating technique known as couching, in which a needle-like instrument was used to push the lens out of the line of sight. In 1747, French physician Jacques Daviel pioneered the practice of surgically removing clouded lenses-eliminating cataracts was better than nothing, but it was obviously an imperfect solution.