Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-16
AN ARTIFICIAL EYE.
How IL is Made and the Difficulty in
Securing a Good Fit.
THE BEST ARE MADE OF SPAR.
Some Are So Perfect That They Deceive the
Wearer's Friends.
VARIETIES AS CHEAP AS BUTTONS

There is a gentleman in New York, mar
ried and the father of family, who has
worn an artificial eve for many years with
out the knowledge of any member of his
family. There are many men and women
in public life who wear artificial eyes un-
discovered. To do this, of course, requires
not only wonderful perfection in the manu-.
facture of the eye itself, but also great cir.
cumspection on the part of the wearer,
whose vision is necessarily limited, and who
is liable to exposure from the occurrences
of everyday life. There was, until recently,
in New York City, lady, the wife Of a
very well-known man, who was in the habit
of meeting constantly very many persons,
and vino won't out much in society, who
wore an artificial eye without detection.
Many artificial eyes are imported from
Germany anc! France, where they are made
almost as cheaply as buttons. In the dis
lagos of men, women aud children assist in
the manufacture. The process is analogous
to glass blowing. Indeed, it is a sort OF
glass blowing. The workman sits at a table
with gas jet flame from a blowpipe in
front of him, which gives an intense heat,
capable of melting the CLASSY substance
which forms The eye. He molds the sub
stance as easily as potter would mold clay.
Then the pupil is put on by the same pro-
cess and the oolors traced with small needles
OF colored substance, so as to initiate the
delicate tracery of the eyeball and pupil.
HAPHAzARD FITTING.
workman makes haphazard vast quantity
OF sizes, shapes and colors, and il is pre-
sumed that dealer can, by keeping large
assortment of these artificial eyes, manage
to match the eyes of any customer. But, in
practice, this proves to be an exceedingly
difficult matter. The colors and shapes of
eyes vary in numberless variety, and where
customers are fastidious and with keen
vision for shades of color, it is seldom poss-
BILE to suit them with these ready-made eyes,
and they are little used in frst.class estab-
lishments, where perfect work is sought re-
gardless of price.
The expression, ga bully boy with a
glass eye" denotes popular error that false
eyes are made of glass. The fact is that the
substance is more like china. About 40
years ago an Englishman named T. j..
Davis began to make artificial eyes in New
ork oY new process. he 10und spar
IN Connecticlltwhich was peculiarly adapted
for the making of artificial eyes, and he
maintained that, alter great research in
other parts of the world, no stone could be
found capable of yielding the same results.
EYES MADE OF SPAR.
This spar, to become ductile, has to be
subjected to an intense heat for from Sc to 4S
hours. When thus thus treated it is ready
for shaping and colorng, and requires no
metallic oxides to work it, and is, there
fore, not liable to injury from the saline
secretions and more durable and artistic
than eyes made in the old way, which was
to mix common glass with metallic oxides,
producing a material easily fusible by heat
and very brittle. The eyes produced by the