Who is the grandfather of Lasik vision correction?

The humble beginnings of Lasik vision correction were started more than 50 years ago by Dr. Jose Barraquer in Bogota, Columbia. He suggested that common corneal defects of near and far sightedness could be helped by operating on the cornea. Back in 1949, this was a truly radical idea! Even though doctors had been splitting the cornea to remove scars for hundreds of years, his idea to operate on a healthy, yet imperfect eye was something new. Dr. Barraquer tested his techniques on animals for 13 years before attempting his new technique on the human eye. He called his new surgical technique 'refractive keratoplasty' which means plastic surgery for the eyes.

Much of the original equipment created by Dr. Barraquer for eye surgery has now been updated and is used for today's Lasik vision correction. He developed the first hand-driven microkeratome, an advanced surgical blade used to cut the cornea. This revolutionary, new tool was a major advancement and replaced the free-handed cutting of the cornea with a surgical knife used by others. In 1963 he first used his new tool to successfully treat both far and near sighted patients. To correct far or near sightedness, Dr. Barraquer surgically removed a slice of his patient's cornea with his microkeratome that operated much the same way a carpenter's plane works. His new instrument removed a microscopically thin wafer of superficial corneal tissue. This wafer was then frozen with liquid nitrogen and shaped to correct the far or near sighted imperfection. Stitches were needed to hold the reshaped lens in place.

Dr. Barraquer patient's had successful vision improvement, but other doctors found this technique difficult to learn as it required extraordinary skill. Due to this complication, Dr. Barraquer's microkeratome technique was never widely accepted by the world's ophthalmic community. The other drawback to his procedure was that freezing the patient's eye tissue sometimes caused permanent, irreparable damage to the corneal tissue. This technique may seem barbaric by today's standards but Dr. Barraquer is considered to have been decades ahead of his time. His pioneering concepts laid the groundwork for today's Lasik vision correction.