Evolution of Cataract Surgery The Dark Ages to New Age Micro Phaco

Compiled by Manoj Prathapan, Amrita institute of Medical Sciences. Cochin Cataract surgery in its simplest form is at least 4000 years old. Couching for cataract was the earliest method at about 2000 BC, and even then was evidently practiced in the Tigris / Euphrates area, India and Japan. The earliest records are from the early Hindu records of Susruta’s time and from Bible and Red Sea Scrolls. Records exist from 400 BC (in Hippocrates time) and from 10 AD and 200 AD (from Roman records), as well as later Arabic references, but there is little evidence in Europe during the middle or dark ages.