ABSTRACT
Worldwide, it is estimated that some 39 million people are blind while over 240 million suffer from low vision. Around 33 per cent of these cases are due to the presence of cataract. The cost of this form of visual impairment is immense in terms of human functioning and wellbeing, and in terms of lost economic output in advanced and developing economies. In terms made familiar by Amartya Sen, the activity of the restoration of sight brings the promise for great improvements in human capabilities, improvements not captured accurately by conventional measures of economic output (Sen 1999). In this chapter we trace the development of an extremely important medical innovation in the field of ophthalmology, the intra-ocular lens, a radical innovation that transformed the treatment of cataract (Apple et al. 2000).
