Robert Morrison

Long standing ISCLS member and contact lens pioneer Robert Morrison has died at the age of 90 at his home in Longboat Key, Florida.

In 1948 he graduated from Pennsylvania State University, Dickinson College, Elizabeth Town College and Pennsylvania College Optometry. He opened his practice in Harrisburg where he started using Wesley Jessen lenses but changed to lenses from Wilhelm Söhnges in Germany because they had better edges. He had made scleral and corneal lenses for his own use but eventually expanded it to become Morrison Laboratories. In the late 50s he was involved with very early work on what would evolve into orthokeratology and myopia control.

In the early 60s he heard about soft lenses from Pierre Rocher. This was a new material used for an artificial mandible and written up in Nature. Pierre had visited Otto Wichterle in Prague but, as his own company was not interested, he mentioned it to Bob Morrison who went to Prague the next day. What happened regarding the patents for soft lenses is very complex but eventually the patents were taken over by Bausch & Lomb. Morrison was the first to make lathe cut soft lenses in the US.

Morrison Labs were sold to the Union Corporation who also owned Airlines, Hotels, Steel Mills and lost more. Union Corp. asked BM to buy more contact lens labs so he bought Gordon Labs in Rochester and Security Labs in LA. Gordon labs made Aquaflex. Later, when Union Corps started to sell off pieces Union Optics was bought by Coopervision.

Morrison had an unusual optical practice with 17 Royal families and many film stars and politicians included as patients. At one stage his was perhaps the largest practice in the US.

In 1983 he founded, together with Thomas Burns MD and Rev Sheridan Watson Bell, the  Cite Foundation (later called the Vision Foundation) to fit contact lenses to deserving cases around the world free of charge. This was followed in 1991 with the foundation of Morrison International to make and market low cost glasses. He was knighted by Prince Bernhardt, on behalf of Queen Juliana of Holland, on April 15^th 1969 for outstanding service in eye care for the poor.