Through the looking glasses: the spectacular life of spectacles by Travis Elborough, Published by Little Brown, £16.99
Panglossian. Not a word that springs forth from the rich lexicon of most eye care professionals. Nevertheless, this book opens with a quote by Dr Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide: ‘Everything was made for a purpose; everything is necessary for the fulfilment of that purpose. Observe the noses have been made for spectacles; therefore we have spectacles.’ It is true spectacles, have kept the nasal protuberance panglossian for a long time.
This book covers the history and geopolitics of spectacles, then the importance of spectacles in literature, art, music, film. It is packed with surprising curios, and curiosities that surprise.
Each section digresses into fascinating aspects of local history, prevailing geopolitics, potted biographies, anecdotes relating to central characters and the threads that connect them.
The author delves into Umberto Eco’s 1980 novel, The Name of the Rose, when a 14th century Franciscan monk named William de Baskerville was dispatched to solve murders at an abbey. The spectacles, Baskerville relied upon to solve the crimes, fascinate a member of the abbey who recalls hearing about them in a sermon by a friar from Pisa. The author immediately delves into a biography of Fr Giordano da Pisa and pieces together that spectacles first took off in Pisa, around 1286, when glaziers realised that some polished crystals magnified the contents of reliquaries. The author then dovetails into the Marco Polo’s description of spectacle use in China, a century earlier, where spectacle lenses were called ‘Tea Lenses’. These lenses, formed from naturally coloured crystals, were used to soothe the eyes not by refracting light but by changing the hue of the wearer’s visual world – to relieve stress. This begs the question: was this the birth of modern-day intuitive colorimetry? Is China the ancestral home of colorimetry?
Elborough connects de Baskerville, by way of name only, to Arthur Conan Doyle who trained in ophthalmology but garnered more kudos from his books. 1904 witnessed the publication of Conan Doyle’s The adventures of the golden pince-nez, and the English version of Marius Tscherning’s Physiological Optics- Dioptrics of the Eye, Functions of the Retina, Ocular Movements and Binocular Vision.1 Tscherning’s magnus opus stems directly from the 10th century writings of Abu Ali al-Hassan ibn al-Haytham who is credited as the first to describe the optics of the eye as we know it today. His writings were introduced to European scholars after they were translated by… Franciscan monks.
Conspicuous, due to its absence, is that Elborough does not question spectacle-related developments in other parts of the world. We know that spectacles were used in India in the 14th century and referred to by Sanskrit scholars back in 500BCE.2
The first reference to spectacles in Britain was in the inventory of Bishop Walter de Stapledon dated 1326. The oldest pair of spectacles in Britain were excavated in London. These were rivet spectacles fabricated in about 1440, two centuries before the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers (WCSM) was established in 1629. What appears most irregular, from the perspective of the petabyte age of now, is connection between spectacle making and brewing.
In 1694, the spectacle maker John Marshall annoyed the WCSM for advertising ‘Near leather frames for spectacles which are not subject to break as horn or tortoise shell.’ Other spectacle makers vociferously feared a loss of revenue from unbreakable glasses. Perhaps a current Past Master Assistant of the WCSM, Prof John Marshall, should have been interviewed for comment. Afterall, he did pioneer the use of excimer lasers to correct ametropia. Something that was also met with fear of a revenue loss from new and replacement glasses.
The author vividly recounts Samuel Pepys unsuccessful forays to local spectacle makers in 1669. The documented evidence implies, this was the first case of spectacle ‘non-tolerance’. Reading Pepys’ diaries gives the impression that he suffered from recurrent conjunctivitis and/or occasional irritation from a foreign body, which, coupled with eye rubbing, led to unstable astigmatism and ocular surface disorders. Or his problems might have resulted from syphilis and uncorrected hyperopia.
Elborough reviews the stereotyping linked to optical appliances. PG Wodehouse declared in 1916 that spectacles are good for uncles, good clergymen, good lawyers, all elderly men, bad uncles, blackmailers and moneylenders. The pince-nez is for good college professors, bank presidents, and musicians. Monocles for good dukes and all Englishmen. Later, in the USA, bebop jazzers, R’n’B musicians and beat poets opted for heavy shell-like frames (cf Dizzy Gillespie, Bo Diddley, Allen Ginsburg). Later, the west coast musicians donned rimless or aviator styles (cf Ray Manzarek, Jerry Garcia).
The key players and stages linked with the development of the styles and materials used in the manufacture of frames, lenses and coatings are presented in an easy to digest format. This includes the story of Robert Klark Graham, a former employee of Bausch and Lomb who made a fortune out of ‘shatterproof glasses’ then started a sperm bank for geniuses all for his affinity towards eugenics.
Charming forays into the world of fashion, design, film and television coupled with parallels with changes in spectacle designs and material are well laid out for the reader.
A great book for the recently qualified dispensing optician or optometrist. It describes the landscape before you embarked on your studies and the visionaries (no pun intended) that constructed the highways upon which you now travel.
For the veteran dispensing optician or optometrist, this book is a great aide memoire packed with tales reminding you of some of the interesting characters that shaped the technology, thus allowing you to do what you do.
References
- MME Tscherning, Physiological Optics - Dioptrics of the Eye, Functions of the Retina, Ocular Movements and Binocular Vision. Translated by Weiland C. Philadelphia, Keystone, 1904.
- Agarwal RK. Origin of spectacles in India. British Journal of Ophthalmology, 1971 Feb;55(2):128-9.