Benjamin Franklin was an inventor, diplomat, scientist, raconteur, librarian and a "founding father" of the American nation. His accomplishments include founding the first public library in the country, the first fire company and fire insurance company, inventing the "Franklin Stove" which was widely used until the advent of central heat, inventing the lightning rod and of course "Bifocal Glasses".
While in France as a diplomat, he wrote the following letter to George Whatley, an English philanthropist:
"To George Whatley:
Your eyes must continue very good,since you can write so small a hand without spectacles. I cannot
distinguish a Letter even of a Large Print; but am happy in the invention of Double Spectacles, which serving
for distant objects as well as near ones, make my Eyes as useful to me as ever they were: If all of the other
Defects and Infirmities were as easily and cheaply remedied, it would be worth while for friends to live a
good deal longer...."
Passy, 21 August, 1784
Here we are nearly 230 years later and most of fail to hold bifocals in the same regard as Benjamin Franklin. He literally took 2 lenses and glued them together to make his initial bifocal and today we have Digital Freeform Technology. Most of us spend more than half our life over 40 years of age, but we never really acknowledge how much our bifocal glasses do for us. Digital Freeform Technology combined with a Progressive (lineless) Multifocal design comes as close to natural vision as possible. In a world so visually complex we are fortunate that technology is providing us great vision and eyesight.
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