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The BrainFood Show

The Crazy Carnival Ride Soviet Turntable Procedure That Gave Us the First Corrective Eye Surgery

The BrainFood Show

Cloud10

History, Education

4.91.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The eyes, they say, are the windows to the soul. More practically, they are our windows to the world, humans being one of many visually-dependent species on the planet. But they are also fragile windows, susceptible to all sorts of injuries, diseases, and disorders. Worldwide, over 2 billion people - nearly a third of the world’s population - suffer from some sort of visual impairment, ranging from mild glaucoma and cataracts to complete blindness. Of these, 88.4 million suffer from mild, easily correctable refractive errors such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. For much of history, the only solution to such impairments was corrective lenses, but more recent years have seen the rise of advanced surgical corrective technology such as LASIK. Thanks to such safe, quick, and relatively painless and inexpensive procedures, thousands of people are able to enjoy perfect vision without the hassle of glasses or contact lenses. But no technology appears fully-formed overnight, and LASIK and its relatives owe their existence to a bizarre procedure developed in 1970s Soviet Russia which involved an assembly-line team of surgeons, diamond scalpels, and a rotating operating table that looked more like a carnival ride than a piece of medical equipment. This is the story of Radial Keratotomy, the world’s first successful corrective eye surgery. Author: Gilles Messier Editor: Daven Hiskey Host: Simon Whistler Producer: Samuel Avila Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Between school runs after school clubs and endless errands, the dinner time juggle is real.

0:05.5

But thanks to Deliveroo, you can tick one thing off the list with Family Dinneroo.

0:10.3

Enjoy a range of family-sized meals for £25 or less from favourites like Wagamma, Pizza Express, Bills and more.

0:17.9

Available Monday to Thursday, 4.30 to 6.30 p.m. Order now.

0:23.1

Selected restaurants subject to availability, geographical restrictions and terms of prior prices

0:27.1

exclude fees, c delivery.co.uk for details. The eyes they say are the windows to the soul.

0:33.3

More practically, there are window to the world, humans being one of many visually dependent

0:38.1

species on the planet.

0:39.8

But they are also fragile windows susceptible to all sorts of injuries, diseases and disorders.

0:45.4

Worldwide, over 2 billion people, nearly a third of the world's population, suffer

0:48.7

from some sort of visual impairments, ranging from mild glaucoma and cataracts to complete

0:54.0

blindness. Of these 88.4 million suffer from mild glaucoma and cataracts to complete blindness.

0:54.9

These 88.4 million suffer from mild, easily correctable, refractive errors such as near-sightedness,

1:00.5

far-sightedness, and astigmatism.

1:02.4

For much of history, the only solution to such impairments was corrective lenses, but more

1:06.7

recent years have seen the rise of advanced surgical corrective technique such as LASIC.

1:11.1

Thanks to such safe, quick, and relatively painless and inexpensive procedures, thousands

1:16.2

of people are able to enjoy perfect vision without the hassle of glasses or contact lenses.

1:20.1

But no technology appears fully formed overnight and LASIC, and its relatives owe their existence

1:25.7

to a bizarre procedure developed in 1970 Soviet Russia,

1:29.6

which involved an assembly line team of surgeon's diamond scalples and a rotating operating

1:34.3

table looked more like a carnival ride than a piece of medical equipment.

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