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Birth
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston -
Motivation For Invention
As he reached old age, Ben Franklin found himself becoming both near- and far-sighted. -
advertisement for bifocals
Franklin came out with his own advertisement for spectacles that was featured in the Philadelphia Gazette -
The birth of bifocals
In the early 1760s Franklin discovered the idea of bifocals. He had his ophthalmologist merge the lenses of his far-sighted glasses and his near-sighted glasses and but the two pieces of glasses in his frames. This was the invention of bifocals. -
Presbyopia
Bifocals are commonly prescribed to people with presbyopia, a condition that Franklin suffered. Franklin wrote, in August 1784 to his friend George Whatley, that he was "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." -
the gift of bifocals
The bifocals continue to help people today. They provide people with the same convenience they provided for Franklin in the late 1700s.
