Heinrich Wöhlk

Heinrich Wöhlk (born April 9, 1913 in Kiel , † December 23, 1991 in Schönkirchen ) was a German manufacturer of contact lenses .

Life

Heinrich Wöhlk was very far-sighted even as a child and had to wear glasses with +9.0 diopters . During his school days and especially when he was working as a designer at the company Anschütz in Kiel, he was bothered by the heavy glasses. That is why he had glass scleral shells fitted to him in the eye clinic in 1936 . One of these scleral shells from Carl Zeiss Jena was inserted into Wöhlk's eye. However, it had to be removed after a short time, as it caused pain and the eyesight deteriorated. Nevertheless, this experience was the impetus for Wöhlk to think about a replacement for glasses.

One of the solutions to the problem was Plexiglas , a new, crystal-clear plastic that was easy to work with. Heinrich Wöhlk had his first experience with Plexiglas at the company Anschütz. His supervisor gave him permission to take leftover pieces home for his experiments. In 1938 and 1939 he experimented with the help of wooden models, plaster molds and wax impressions on scleral shells made of Plexiglas. In 1940 he succeeded for the first time in making a scleral shell out of plexiglass that he could put in his eye. Wöhlk put his first self-produced scleral shell in the eye and was enthusiastic about the comfort. Although he couldn't see anything because the optics were missing, five hours of wearing time without any problems was a small sensation.

From 1942 to 1945 Wöhlk fought in World War II . After the war ended, he became unemployed and continued his attempts. In 1946, under the guidance of the director of the Kiel Eye Clinic, Professor Meesmann, Wöhlk made wax impressions of 70 different eyes and used them as standard shapes. He manufactured several scleral shell blanks into which the appropriate optics were ground if necessary . The first scleral shells were sold, but most of the shells came back due to intolerance. His idea of ​​providing the scleral shell blanks with interchangeable optics did not bring the desired success either, but formed the basis for the contact lenses.

Company history

In 1947 Heinrich Wöhlk hired the first freelancer, advertised his scleral shells and in April 1948 registered his first business under the name of the manufacture of adhesive glasses . However, most of the bowls sold continued to come back. Wöhlk then registered the business again.

One day, more out of desperation than out of conviction, Heinrich Wöhlk put the processed optical part of the scleral shell in his eye. It had a diameter of 12 mm and was rounded in the edge area. Right away he was able to wear this lens all day and see well. He called his invention the contact lens .

In 1949 Heinrich Wöhlk opened his first shop in a bombed-out apartment in Kiel on Rathausstrasse. A student who wore lenses himself sold the new product there. In 1951, the new Plexiglas (PMMA) contact lens, the Parabolar, was developed to the point of production. Heinrich Wöhlk registered a trade again. The two freelancers - Walter Hahn and Heinz Hinz - were permanently hired in 1952 and were the first employees at Wöhlk-Contact-Linsen. The Parabolar was introduced on the market. In 1953, production was relocated from a gazebo in the Anschützsiedlung to the living room of his new house in Scharweg. In the following years new technologies were worked on in the basement workshop and production expanded in the living area.

In 1961 the Wöhlk company already had nine employees and moved its lens production to the Astor house in Kiel on Andreas-Gayk-Straße. The workshop stayed in Scharweg.

The Wöhlk company continued to expand and moved to a new building in Schönkirchen in 1971, and in 1974 Wöhlk brought the first soft contact lens, the Hydroflex, onto the market.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a wide variety of hard and soft contact lenses were developed and introduced to the market. In the mid-1990s, replacement systems (lenses that are replaced with new ones daily, weekly or monthly) gained in importance. From 2000 the company Wöhlk began to serve the market with exchange lenses from its own, ultra-modern production.

Web links

• History about Wöhlk. Wöhlk-Contact-Linsen, accessed on July 6, 2011 . 
• Cornelius Kob : Heinrich Wöhlk - suffering for the lens. NDR,accessed July 6, 2011.