Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!marage.demon.co.uk!james-follett.com!james From: James Follett Newsgroups: alt.usage.english Subject: Re: A visit from Jimbo! (Was: Data is or data are?) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 22:56:34 +0000 Organization: none Message-ID: References: <3c53b29c.20309984@news.erols.com> <3C5403BE.A78567AC@seed.net.tw> <3C5446B5.A7F1871B@seed.net.tw> <3C54CF76.EFF2DC67@seed.net.tw> <3C55F633.113E3E11@seed.net.tw> <3C56C8DC.75050CF1@seed.net.tw> Reply-To: James Follett NNTP-Posting-Host: marage.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: marage.demon.co.uk:158.152.75.131 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1012604300 nnrp-14:14146 NO-IDENT marage.demon.co.uk:158.152.75.131 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: Turnpike Integrated Version 5.01 U Lines: 60 In article , Mark Barratt writes >Hi Jim! Long time no see, as they say. Are you staying long? Hallo, people, and thanks for the nice welcomes. I've been out of the Usenet writing game (limiting myself to one or two newsgroups) for a goodly time, having had a series of ops in 2001 to give me what is known at Moorfields Eye Hospital as "RAF vision". Fifty years ago, in 1952, at the age of 12, I was in the capable hands of a Mr Harold Ridley, an extremely kindly ophthalmic surgeon who saved my right eye following an accident that cost me my left eye. The lens had to removed (needled) to prevent infection spreading. His parting words to me all those years ago were: "Come back in 20-years and we might be able to put an artificial lens in your left eye." I went back in the 1960s and got much the same answer from Mr Rigley's successor: "Sorry -- not enough tissue to anchor a lens in place. Come back in 20 years." Last year my vision started clouding in my good eye so I hot-footed to London and got to see the one man who's been working near miracles at Moorfields. To my astonishment, he was prepared to tackle my defunct left eye on the grounds that it had been pretty useless for half a century therefore nothing would be lost if a lens implant operation went pear-shaped. The op was carried out and was a success. I ended up with a crystal clear (why do we use that ridiculous cliché? I've never seen a clear, unground crystal) acrylic lens in my left eye. In the wrong place -- in front of the pupil and held in place by the cornea. But it works! After allowing a few months for everything to settle down, the surgeon tackled my right eye, which was a routine cataract operation. My curiosity was aroused so I started doing some digging. I was astonished to learn that the kindly Harold Ridley was still alive in 1999, he was 94, and received a knighthood that year for his pioneering work in intra-ocular implants. Digging further revealed that he was more than a mere pioneer, he actually started implants and developed a technique that has benefited millions of people worldwide over the last sixty years. As with all great discoveries, serendipity played an important role. As a young eye doctor during WWII he was puzzled to note that the eyes of some crashed fighter pilots reacted to glass splinters from cockpit canopies and that some pilots' eyes did not react. He did some research after discovering that it was pilots of crashed Hurricanes whose eyes did not react. Hurricane canopies were made of a type of Plexiglas or Perspex -- acrylic. This gave Harold Ridley the idea of making artificial lenses from acrylic and implanting them in the eyes of pilots whose lenses had been damaged or destroyed. Against all odds, and opposition from his colleagues, he persevered and succeeded. The rest, as they say, is history. He died in 2000. -- James Follett Novelist (Callsign G1LXP) http://www.davew.demon.co.uk