Another ‘jewish invention’ claim that I have come across is the claim that jews ‘invented’/’performed’ the first cataract surgery with Marnie Winston-Macauley at Aish claiming that it was the responsibility of a jew named Charles Kelman. (1)
The problem – as always – is that is this complete and utter nonsense since if we are being broad and include cataract surgery that does not actually remove the lens and just pushed to the side to allow better vision (this is a procedure called ‘couching’); then it is one of the oldest known surgeries in human history whose first recorded mentioned is in the ‘Code of Hammurabi’ (c. 1775 B.C.) while the first recorded depiction of the surgery is found on a statue from ancient Egypt dated to c. 2457 B.C. to 2467 B.C. (2)
So thus, it cannot have originated with the jews, but what if we are talking about cataract surgery where the lens is actually fully removed rather than pushed to one side?
Well, there is evidence that the Greeks and Romans were the first to do this since the Persian physician Abu Bakr al-Razi credited the Greek surgeon Antyllus (c.100-200 A.D.) who lived in Rome with having invented the technique. (3) However, the first properly documented cataract surgery in the sense of actually removing the lens surgically was performed by the French doctor Jacques Daviel in Cologne in Germany on 18th September 1750 (4) and Daviel appears to have been performing these operations since 1745. (5)
Then three years later in 1753 the English doctor Samuel Sharp conducted the first intracapsular cataract extraction (aka ICCE). (6)
But what of Charles Kelman?
Kelman was indeed jewish (7) but he didn’t ‘invent’ or ‘perform the first’ cataract surgery but rather as his obituary in the ‘New York Times’ rightly observes: he made it easier. (8) Kelman improved the technique for cataract extraction with his 1967 invention of phacoemulsification (9) but that is it.
He didn’t ‘invent’ or ‘carry out the first’ cataract surgery at all despite what Winston-Macauley wants to claim!
References
(1) https://aish.com/91795029/
(2) F. Ascaso, J. Lizana, J Cristobal, 2009, ‘Cataract surgery in ancient Egypt’, Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 607-608
(3) Christopher Leffler, Andrey Klebanov, Wasim Samara, Andrzej Grzybowski, 2020, ‘The history of cataract surgery: from couching to phacoemulsification’, Annals of Translational Medicine, Vol. 8, No. 22, a. 1551
(4) Christopher Leffler, B Frits Hogewind, Stephen Schwartz, Andrzej Grzybowski, 2023, ’Jacques Daviel performed the first documented planned primary cataract extraction on Sep. 18, 1750’, Eye, Vol. 38, No. 7, pp. 1392-1393
(5) Ibid., p. 1393
(6) Geetha Davis, 2016, ‘The Evolution of Cataract Surgery’, Missouri Medicine, Vol. 113, No. 1, p. 59
(7) https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/05/business/dr-charles-kelman-74-made-cataract-removal-easier.html
(8) Idem.
(9) Davis, Op. Cit., p. 60
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