Adolf Eugen Fick



Adolf Eugen Fick (born 3 September, 1829, in Kassel, Germany; died 21 August, 1901, in Blankenberge, Flandern) was a German physiologist usually credited with the invention of contact lenses. He earned a 1851 doctorate at Marburg in medicine.

In 1855 he introduced Fick's law of diffusion, which governs the diffusion of a gas across a fluid membrane. In 1870 he was the first to devise a technique for measuring cardiac output, called the Fick Principle. In 1887 he constructed and fitted what was to be considered the first successful model of a contact lens: an afocal scleral contact shell made from heavy brown glass, which he tested first on rabbits, then on himself, and lastly on a small group of volunteers. His idea was advanced independently by several innovators in the years that followed.

Fick managed to double-publish his law of diffusion, as it applied equally to physiology and physics. His work led to the development of the Direct Fick method for measuring Cardiac Output.