When British Surgeon Harold Ridley took the daring step of implanting a tiny plastic lens inside the eye of a patient operated on for a cataract (TIME, Feb.
4, 1952), it seemed that medical science had won a great victory in the 3,000-year battle to save elderly clouded eyes. For two years the results looked good. Then an unexpected drawback appeared: some of the plastic lenses slipped out of place, into the middle of the eyeball.
Now a German ophthalmologist, Er-langen's Professor Eugen Schreck, reports a danger-free adaptation of the Ridley technique. Instead of following nature closely, as did Ridley, in putting the...
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