Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick

For the physiologist, see Adolf Eugen Fick.

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Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick (1852-1937)

Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick (February 22, 1852, Marburg – February 11, 1937, Herrsching am Ammersee) was a German ophthalmologist who invented the contact lens. He was the nephew of the German physiologist Adolf Eugen Fick, and the son of the German anatomy professor Franz Ludwig Fick.

Adolf Fick was actually raised in the family of his uncle after the premature death of his father, anatomy professor Ludwig Fick. He studied medicine in Würzburg, Zürich, Marburg and Freiburg.

In 1887 he constructed and fitted what was to be considered the first successful model of a contact lens: an afocal scleral contact shell made from heavy brown glass, which he tested first on rabbits, then on himself, and lastly on a small group of volunteers. It was considered the first successful model of a contact lens. His idea was advanced independently by several innovators in the years that followed.

During WWI, Fick headed the field hospitals in France, Russia and Turkey. At the same time he continued working on ophthalmologic anatomy and optics.

External links and sources

• Fick biography - The "Kontaktbrille" of Adolf Eugen Fick (1887)
• Fick biography - Contact Lens History, the overseas pioneers