As?with many historical developments, the evolution of soft contact lenses did not escape the political, social, and economic impact of its time. The birth of soft contact lenses is primarily focused on one individual—Czechoslovakian chemist Otto Wichterle, who was born in Prostějov, Moravia on Oct. 27, 1913. At a young age, it was clear that he preferred a life in science rather than a career in his family’s farm machinery factory. Following his high school graduation, he studied chemistry (Figure 1) at the Czech Technical University in Prague and then completed his doctoral thesis in chemistry in 1939. However, he was not allowed to continue there;at the dawn of World War II, Germany had seized Czechoslovakia, and the universities were closed.
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