Willie Danz

It took years to get to this place in the forefront of one of the world's most obscure professions. No, not just years. Let's be precise. It took generations of German craftsmen bent low over workshop tables. Painstaking hours of detailed work to get it just right. Perfectionism. Discipline passed down from grandfather to father to son. All in the pursuit of one goal: to build the perfect simulation of a human eye.

It took years to get to this place in the forefront of one of the world's most obscure professions. No, not just years. Let's be precise. It took generations of German craftsmen bent low over workshop tables. Painstaking hours of detailed work to get it just right. Perfectionism. Discipline passed down from grandfather to father to son. All in the pursuit of one goal: to build the perfect simulation of a human eye.

I would like to acknowledge Willie Danz for causing me a bit of social anxiety ("The Ocularist," by Tracie White, April 10). One of my patients has a Danz-made prosthetic eye. When she arrives for an appointment I remember that she has a prosthetic and think to myself that I should make eye contact with her real eye. But, alas, at casual viewing I cannot tell which eye is the real one. I end up feeling awkward as my view darts from eye to eye or...