The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-10-30
THE HUMAN EYE.
PECULIARITIES OF NATURES
PHOTOGRAPHIC CAMERA.
Dangers in Obtaining Spectacle Pre-
scription - AL Persons Need
Glasses Late in Life--Points
About Nearsightedness.

ABOUT CNcdFSlSuecuhSSS.
: sIt takes years of hard study for an
ophthalmic surgeon to learn how to tit
glasses" said an oculist to a Washington
Star reporter. s'No two persons eyes
are quite alike, and few patients have
both eyes the same; in each case dozen
different possible defects have to be
looked out for and remodled by glasses
ground in special ways if they exist. 1t
is apt to take an hour or more for skilled
oculist to find out just what glasses you
require, but the confident optician will
call your attention to few rows of diff
ferent sized letters at the other end of the
shop, ask you what rows you can read
and sell you pair of spectacles accord
ing, off hand. Of course it is always a
more or less wild guess on the opticians
part, infinitely more apt to be wrong than
right, and if you will consider that every
bit of error as to fit in the glasses means
Just so much continual strain upon the
eyes of the wearer, you will see what an
immense amount of harm must be done in
this way. The thing to do, if you need
glasses, is to 60 to the ophthalmic surgeon
for the prescription, as you would go to
any other physician if you had pain,
and then take the prescription to the op-
tician, who is the doctors apothecary,
as it were, to be filled. The glasses are
prepared for you-if need be, specially
ground-and you have the satisfaction OF
knowing that they are precisely what
they require.
s'Were people afflicted with near sight
edness in ancient times?" Inquired the
reporter.
"Oh, yes, was the reply, though pro-
badly not to the same extent. We read,
write and study more than the ancients
did, and for this reason near-sight is
more common with us, for it is the ex-
cessive use of the eyes at the near point
that propagates the troubles. In old
times troubles with the eyes were re-
garded as Affections sent by heaven, for
which there no cure. Nero, who fiddled
while Rome was burning, was SO near
sighted that, although he had the very
best seat in the amphitheater at the
gladiator shows, he could not see what
was going on. One day he discovered
that a certain concave emerald in his col
lection of Jewels aided his vision material
ly, and from time he always carried the
Iemerald about with him and, wher. he
wanted to see anything at distance,
looked through it. He regarded the
stone as talisman and supposed that its
properties were magical"
s'Is it true that every person needs
yspectacles at some period of lifc?"
DECIDEDLY, if the person lives to be
forty-ive years of age. At that age, or
at any rate before fifty is reached, the
crystalline lens, which is of the consis-
,tency of jelly in childhood, has gradually
hardened to the consistency of wax, so
that the muscles which change the focus
of the eye for various distances, by al
tering the shape OF the lens, find it diff
cult to do their work. You will perceive
that after looking at an object across the
street, to examine your finger attentively
requires distinct effort of the eye. You
have to exert the muscles that control the
shape of the lens in order to make the
focus right for the near point.
Of the lens has got hard, through
advancing age, continuous et-
fort of this sort, as in reading, becomes
tiresome, and thus it is that the middle
aged man or woman finds the first indi-
cation of what is ignorantly termed fail
ing sight in the blurring of the letters
in the book OF newspaper. Now, the
fact is, of course, that the ocular organ
is Just as good as ever, save for the fact
that it needs little help in the way of a
glass lens to make the focus right for
reading and thus save the muscles work.
The sight for distance, under such cir
cumstances, still remains as good as ever,
because the lens in its natural focus and
shape is adapted to distant vision. But
the middle-aged person, as a rule imag-
ines that the blurring of the letters signi-
fes impaired sight. He or she is aware
that glasses will make reading easy again,
but hesitation is felt in adopting them on
account of the widespread saying that,
once taken up, spectacles can never be
done without again. The truth at the
bottom of this lies in the fact that, when
ones sight has once been restored by ar
tifcial means, one is not disposed to
throw the help away again. Not realiz-
ing the middle-aged person keeps on
straining the eyes until they become some
what damaged, for want of artificial aid
in reading or sewing, and finally the
glasses are adopted-bought, in nine
cases out of ten, from the ignorant opti-
clans, to cause more trouble, very likely,
later on. And all the distress might
have been saved by simply going to the
oculist when the annoyance first began to
be felt and procuring the proper glasses.
This is what every person at forty-fve
years of age ought to do, for there is no
one that arrives at the age of fifty, at the
utmost, who does not need assistance for
close vision"
''Is it true that near-sighted eyes i'm
prove as they grow older?"
"Pah! That is another popular de-
lusion. Near-sightedness may grow worse
with age, but not better. Likewise, it
is nonsense to suppose, as is so commonly
asserted, that the near-sighted eye is
unusually strong. How should the alb
NORMAL euor ehopod aua he ctrononr than