St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-08-01
ARE YOUR EYES PERFECT.
A Question That Many Cannot An
swer Affirmatively. Sc

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Do you wear glasses? And if you do,
do you know what kind they are, how
they are made. or just why you wear
them? Do you know what the matter
is with your eyes that you need to help
them out with uncomfortable '.specks, I"
or pinehing "nippers?" Or do you sim
ply go blindly in, feeling, as it were,
your way to pair of glistening discs,
and feel away until you find those that
suit? ~
There is a collection of pertinent
perhaps You might consider them i'm
neutrality-suspicious. which the all-per-
vading enumerator might have-but
probably did not-asked you in the
course of his wandering about town. 1t
is not absolutely necessary that you
should answer them now, except. per-
haps. to satisfy your own aroused curl
osity on the subject, for the object OF
the few observation which follow is to
enlighten you. it you need enlighten-
ment, and to strengthen your own pre-
yiously acquired knowledge If you
don't.
The ayes. not alone your own. but
those of the fairest girl in the world, are
apparently good deal like joey Bag
stocks ostentatiOuS liver-they're ''dev-
iliSh queer" Some of them, of course,
are just as perfect as anything human
could be, but others of them are OBJ
streperous, apt to give trouble, and
wholly rebellious. They cut the queer
est pranks-as any love-sick swain can
tell yOu-get out OF order, make them
to make life an appalling burden.
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hands-figuratively speaking, of course
in this manner, it becomes the duty OF
the oculist and the optician to reduce
them to subsection, and to make them
feel that they are not the uncontrolled,
glittering autocrats they think them"
selves. And the OculiSt nowadays can,
with the assistance of the optlcian, do
pretty much with refractory eyes as
Prof. Gleason does with the unruly
horses which are brought to him to
Subdue. He examines and prescribeS
just as the physician would examine
person suffering from liver complaint or
bleeding at the nose. The druggist fills
the physicians prescription; the optic
ian fills that of the Oculist.
One of the best-known opticians is
Arthur Pratt, who is all Occulist as we'll
He has had long and varied expert
ence In the treatment of defective eyes,
and has done much to relieve the ne
cessities optical necessities-of many,
many persons. He was good enough to
talk to Times reporter the other day
about eyes, glasses and the combination
of the two, and the information impart-
ed by him is the basis of this: which is
termed a co lection of observations.
The three chief ocular defects which
the oculist is called upon, not exactly
to remedy, for that is impossible, but to
regulate by the use of lenses. disguise
themselves in the comprehension of the
ordinary intellect with the lovely names
of myopy, hypermetrOpia and myoplc
and hypermetrOpic aStigmatism. 10
the ordinary persons the first two OF
these formidably named defects are
short-sightedness and long sightedneSs,
and the third has no common name.
The eye in its normal state is nearly a
perfect sphere, almost an inch in dia-
meter, through which the rays of light
enter and come to focus exactly on the
retina. But lots of people are born
with eyeballs too long, and the rays
come to focus before they reach the
retina. Such people are shOrt-sighted.
Lots of other people are born with eye
balls too short, and such people are
lO1lS-SISUtSu. DUH CloSSCO DdSC W WOoA
glasses in order that they may get along
in the ordinary way, and that, In the ex-
preSSive language of the day, is where
the oculist "comes ill.," 1t is he who, II
the afflicted one is wise and cOnsultS
him, examines and preScrlbeS, and it is
the optician who fills the prescription.
Then come the persons with irregu-
lar corneaS-another technical term.
which means the outer surface OF the
eye-who either see horizontal lines and
can't see vertical lines, or who can
see vertical lines and can't see hort
Zontal lines. and these generally have a
hard time of it, for the ordinary glasses
don't do them any good. Then there are
other afflicted human beings, one or
more of the muscles of whose eyes are
weak, and they, be they never so tenn
perate, are continually seeing double.
The weakness of one muscle makes it
impossible for the impressions received
on the eyes to harmOnlZe, and so such
people see two objects for every one
they really see, which is, to say the least.
unpleasant.
Now. all these things are readily rem
edied by the competent Oculist. To
the short-sighted individual he pre-
scirbesla concaYe lens, and that person
never heard of myopy. A convex lens
will make long sighted gentleman a
medium and all-right-sighted gentle
man; a ''cylindricaF' lens will make a
so-burdened individual forgot all about
his astigmatism, and what the person
hampered by weak muscle needs and
gets is Just priSm-a prlsmatic lens.
Any one of these defects, one would
imagine, would be an amply generous
burden for any one man to carry around
with him continually. But Mr.. Pratt
has had the unique experience of filling
out an oculist'S prescription calling for
a pair of glasses which would combine
in one pair of lenses cures for three
separate and distinct defects in one pair
of eyes. The unfortunate but Subse-
ouently relieved individual for whom
these glasses were prescribed was long
GIFTED, one of his optic muscles was
weak, and he suffered from hyperme-
trophic astigmatlsm. When he went to an
oculisJ for advice he was laboring under
the impression that he had more defects
than eyes, and was sore distressed.
The examination and subsequent
treatment resulted in giving him great
joy, and. while he wore his combination
glasses, perfect sight. There were con-
convex. "cylindricap' and prismatic.
The prism and the cylinder lit isn't
real cylinder in the real sense OF the
word, but just thick lens of peculiar
properties-were, by a process known
to opticians, ground into the convex
lens, and when the operation was con-
cluded there was handed to the 'pa-
TENT pair of glasses which, to the
causual observer, presented no unusual
appearance, even though they did COM
blue SO many corrective appliances.
They were a little thicker at the outer
edges, where the wedge-shaped prism
had been ground in the simple lens, but
that was all the outward difference, and
they made their owner see as we'll as if
he possessed the most perfect eyes in
the world. z
Another queer optic complication
was that of a person who was short
sighted IN one eye and long sighted in
the other. Both defects were very
slight at first, so that not much incon-
venience was felt. But after a while
this inconvenience increased, and he