Surgery and Healing in the Developing World - Dartmouth-Hitchcock

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344 Surgery and Healing in the Developing World
Figure 7. Cutting.
Completion
The final stage is to fix the lens in place, tighten the frame and polish the lens.
This process should take approximately 30 minutes per pair of glasses.
Other Possibilities
It is possible (although laborious) to use a manual glass grinder or diamond-coated
file for shaping the lens. This will significantly decrease the set-up costs but will be
extremely time-consuming if several pairs of glasses are to be made. Plastic lenses
can also be used; a cheap way of cutting them is to use a hacksaw, and shaping can be
accomplished using a standard file.
Eye Surgery
If you have received no special training, the operations you can safely perform
on the eye are limited. The following section aims to give a basic grounding in eye
surgery as well as describing some of the simpler operations when referral is not
possible.
Basics
Ocular tissues are delicate, and eye surgery requires delicate instruments. Do not
attempt surgery with the large instruments containing in a basic set; have an oph-