British vision

The advances of medical science can sometimes seem as baffling as – we are promised – they are revolutionary. But occasionally there are breakthroughs whose miraculous quality we can all immediately appreciate. One was the tale last year of Darek Fidyka, a paralysed Bulgarian man who walked again after pioneering surgery funded from Britain. Now this country is behind another development that will touch a nerve. As we report today, 80-year-old Ray Flynn has become the first man to have a “bionic eye” fitted to repair damage from age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

The NHS estimates that condition, which can cause radical loss of vision, affects around half a million people in Britain. Many elderly people are stoical about the vicissitudes of age, but loss of sight is a particularly pernicious ill. In practical terms, it robs its victims of the ability to live as independently as they once did, preventing them driving, for example. There are effects on morale, too. Many older readers are terrified by the prospect that they may, one day, not be able to settle down to their favourite newspaper or lose themselves in a good book.

While only at the test stage, the retinal implant offers hope to many of those afflicted by AMD, which is currently incurable. If it lives up to its promise, it will become the latest in a long series of medical leaps that have had their origins on these shores – from penicillin and anaesthesia to IVF and hip replacements. While it is fashionable to run down the quality of Britain’s research and development today, it is plain to see that we remain capable of world-beating, cutting-edge technological development.