I think it was in a Daedalus article that I read a passing reference to a technician who had had an operation for cataracts - the synthetic lens then allowed th

I think it was in a Daedalus article that I read a passing reference to a technician who had had an operation for cataracts - the synthetic lens then allowed them to see a little way into the ultraviolet and thus they were able to calibrate a spectrometer "by eye" ! Edit: Ok, I looked it up... from the Daedalus column in New Scientist in May 1969: "... Daedalus recalls the story of a professor of spectroscopy who lost an eye-lens in an explosion. He was given corrective spectacles with enough UV transparency to let him see some way into this region of the spectrum. Accordingly, he could line up the departmental UV spectrometers by eye, and was much in demand!"