Leechburg optometrist considered a visionary
LEECHBURG -- For 59 years, Leechburg optometrist Arthur Duppstadt has gone to great lengths to craft the most comfortable contact lenses for several generations of his patients.
This small town doctor is a big-time inventor of the multi-focal, gas-permeable contact lenses. Duppstadt holds a patent for this special lens dubbed "Panoramic D" (D is for Duppstadt).
These lens act much like a pair of multi-focals, allowing a user to see far and close with progressively changing prescriptions without a visible line.
To the user who does not want to wear contacts lens AND reading glasses, these lens are well worth its price tag up to $550, lasting five years or more.
Laboratories and optometrists throughout the region lease Duppstadt's patent, so their patients can benefits from "Panoramic D" as well. He holds other patents including precision tools used by optometrists to provide that perfect contact lens fit to their customers and spring hinges for eyeglasses.
"I wear these lenses. I was my own guinea pig," Duppstadt said.
Not surprising for a man, who as a young student was concerned about how contact lenses would weigh heavy on certain areas of the cornea.
"I wanted to change that," he said. "You have diamond tools to better shape the lens so it doesn't insult the cornea."
When contact lenses came on the scene in the late 1940s and 1950s, they were not immediately accepted, but Duppstadt saw them as boon for patients with poor eyesight.
"Contacts serve as better lenses," he said. "The further away from the cornea that you have to hang the lens, the more aberrations you have to see. Contact lenses eliminate that distance."
Duppstadt has had a life-long devotion to developing more effective and comfortable contact lenses and has passed that passion onto his family. The son of an optometrist himself, Duppstadt shares his practice with his optometrist son, Arthur Orlo Duppstadt. And his granddaughter Natalie Noble of Allegheny Township is in her third year of graduate school at the New England College of Optometry in Boston.
Besides his practice, Duppstadt has been a life-long environmentalist who has been honored by the Kiskiminetas Watershed Association and the governor for his work in recycling.
Considered a visionary, Duppstadt was instrumental in starting the Leechburg recycling center in 1970, long before the practice was mandated for larger communities.
"I got involved because of the unnecessary waste," he said. "You can make 20 new aluminum cans from recycled cans with the same energy that it takes to produce one can with virgin materials."
Always interested in contributing to the community, Duppstadt is a veteran fighter pilot who flew a P-51 in World War II in the 8th Air Force.
He is modest and soft spoken about his accomplishments but ardent about the importance of his profession. Working three and half days per week, Duppstadt says, "I can't see myself retiring, this is what I like to do."
The best thing about practicing in a small town, according to Duppstadt, is his connection with the community.
"If I wasn't in practice, I wouldn't be touch with all the people I've known all of my life," he said. "I think it is healthy for people to continue to do things that are important to them and it makes for a long, healthy life."
Dr. Arthur Duppstadt
Residence: Allegheny Township.
Age: 84.
Family: Wife, Nancy; sons Arthur O. Duppstadt of Bethel Township, Todd Duppstadt of Blawnox and Dennis Duppstadt of Allegheny Township; daughter, Sue Haugh of Allegheny Township and six grandchildren.
Favorite thing about the Valley: "I like the continuity of the way people are together in different small communities. I like it that there are not people rushing, moving in and moving out. Their families have been here for generations and that makes for stability and good relationships."
