Ridley, Sir Harold Lloyd

▪ 2002

      British ophthalmologist (b. July 10, 1906, Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, Eng.—d. May 25, 2001, Salisbury, Wiltshire, Eng.), devised the first successful artificial intraocular lens (IOL) transplant surgery for cataract patients. During World War II, Ridley observed that when splinters of Perspex from cockpit canopies became lodged in the eyes of wounded pilots, they did not trigger immune reactions. Traditionally, following surgical removal of cataracts, patients were fitted with thick-lensed eyeglasses, but Ridley, on the basis of his wartime observations, developed IOL implants. The British medical community rejected the procedure as too risky, so in 1949 Ridley conducted his first implant operation in secret. Despite some initial problems with complications, by the 1970s improved instrumentation and microsurgical techniques had made the procedure the most common treatment for cataracts in the U.S. British doctors eventually followed suit, and in 1986, some 15 years after his retirement from medical practice, Ridley was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. He was knighted in 2000.

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