In the 1980s, with the ever-increasing popularity of the Kelman phacoemulsification technique that emphasized a small incision and extra-capsular cataract extraction ( ECCE ), the keratome-and-scissors, large incision surgery technique combined with intracapsular cataract extraction ( ICCE ) became obsolete, although the use of the von Graefe knife still continued in India.
32.
Bronze oral suction instruments have been unearthed that seem to have been used for this method of cataract extraction during the 2nd century AD . Such a procedure was described by the 10th-century Iraqi ophthalmologist Ammar ibn Ali of Mosul, in his " Choice of Eye Diseases ", also written in the 10th century.
