The first operations to remove the cataract were carried out by the Egyptians: a small acute instrument was introduced into the eye to push the crystalline lens into the vitreous body. In the Middle Ages, the reclinatio method was used to displace the cataract. In the eighteenth century, it seems to have been Casanova who had the intuition to replace the crystalline lens with blown lenses in Venetian glassworks; this solution was later taken up by the Roman surgeon Strimpelli, in 1947.
In 1862, the German ophthalmologist Albert Mooren was the first to practice iridectomy as a preparatory surgical procedure for cataract extraction. This approach, two years later, was followed by the real turning point in cataract surgery, thanks to the contribution of Albrecht von Graefe, who proposed the removal of the crystalline lens by combining the iridectomy with the execution of the upper linear cut . The method allowed an easier healing and a lower danger of infection (the incision remained covered by a small conjunctiva flap).
The modern history of intraocular lenses began in 1949 when the English ophthalmologist Harold Ridley had the idea of replacing the removed lens with another artificial one.
