an ultrasonic vibration inducing unit, having a handpiece to a tip of which an ultrasonic chip is attached, which induces ultrasonic vibrations to a nucleus lentis of a patient's eye so as to split, and fragment and emulsify the nucleus lentis;

an irrigating/aspirating unit which leads an irrigation liquid to the eye and discharges a waste liquid out of the eye;

an input unit, having a foot pedal for changing ultrasonic power in response to a depression amount of the foot pedal, which inputs operation signals of the irrigating/aspirating unit and the ultrasonic vibration inducing unit;

an image-pickup unit which picks up an image of a crystalline lens of the eye;

an image processing unit which detects a color of the nucleus lentis by processing an image signal from the image-pickup unit;

a detecting unit which detects hardness of the nucleus lentis based on the detected color of the nucleus lentis; and

a setting unit which automatically sets at least one of a maximum value, a pulse-duty ratio and the number of pulses per unit of time of the ultrasonic power based on a result of the detection by the detecting unit.