5000 GLASS EYES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 15, 16 October 1942, Page 6

5000 GLASS EYES

CAME FROM UNIQUE ENGLISH'

FACTORIES LAST YEAR

German prisoners are among the thousands who have been given glass eyes by a unique Government factory in the north of England. It issued 5000 eyes last year, and close upon GOO of them went to civilians who had lost an eye in the air raids. The factory supplies the Navy, the Army and the R.A.F.; the Allied Forces including the Poles, the Fighting French, the Norwegians and the Czechs: the A.T.S., the W.A.R.F's .and other women's Scrviccs. They have event sent, eyes out to the troops in the Middle East. The factory was working in a small way in peace time for men who had lost an eye in the last war. They used to get their glass from Germany. It is made in Britain to-day. The glass comes* to the factory in long tubes and rods. A glass tube is heated over a gas burner; the worker blows through it and. makes a bulb in the middle; one end is snapped off, and work on the eye begins. The bulb is again heated as arc rods of coloured glass which are pressed, upon the bulb to form the pupil and iris. Crystal glass is worked in for the cornea and little red veins are marked out with tiny strands of red glass. It is often a difficult job to match up the colouring for there is no standardisation. Each eye depends upon, the patient himself. Glass eyes arc coming in for renewal at the rate of 250 a week.