The Logan County banner. [volume] (Logan, W. Va.) 1889-1903, 1891-04-30
sPEcTAcLEs ON TIVE srResr


Comparatively few persons nowadays
are blessed with normal or perfect eye
sight. The opticians are authority for
this statement It is to be presumed
they know what they arc talking about
Children wearing spectac!es in the
streets. in tho schools and In public
| places are almost as numerous is the
members Of that large class who have
been compelled to resort to the artificial
aid Of glasses because Of sight made
dim by years You often hear persons
of your acquaintance saw ~ see so
many young men and young women
wearing eyeglasses with Snowy little
gold chain attachments or gold-bowed
spectacles every time go down town
Why Is 1t? Has it become the fashion?
Is it considered stylish? At the thea
ter, when / go to church, or to the
restaurant or club, or to a swell recep-
ton / notice the same tendency among
young people and those in the prime of
life to wear glasses"
For every person, young or old. who
resorted to spectacles a few years
ago there are ten now. Spec
taeles used to be the signals of adj
vancing age and the ompanions Of
gray hairs and wrinkled faces. If a
young man in country village put on
glasses because of some defect in his
vision few years ago, he was an object
of curiosity and was looked upon as a
coxcomb by all the yolsels. To wear
spectacles was to open way for ridi-
Guile as surely as when he appeared on
the village street with his first chimney
pot hat. So the young miss in her
teens, who, because of nearsightedness,
could not see the stars at night, was the
innocent cause of gossip about her
pedantry as soon as she put on glasses.
These ideas about nature supplying
every thing needful for the young have
suffered a revolution.
@Thirty years ago, said an optician
yesterday, 1--WE made only about eighty
different combinations with ground
glasses for defects of sight. We now
make over 100000 different combina-
tions. All this has been accomplished
through the study of astigmatism and
the grinding of astigmatic glasses. This
defect is described by opticians as a
in the refractory power land hence focal
distance) of the diaineters of the media
(cornea and lensl through which light
passes while entering the eye. Instead
of rays of light being focused to point
on the retina there is an oval or line
formed. Astigmatism may occur not
only in. an emmetropic or normal eye,
but also in those in which nearsighted-
ness or farsightedness exists So, you
see, it has a very wide sweep, and re-
quires many thousands Of different conn
binations in glasses
Reading the indistinct print Of cheap
novels injures~many eyes in young
people. In former years when persons
suffering from astigmatism in some
form or other which caused headache,
nervousness or lassitude called on an
oculist he would prescribe blue, green
or smoked glasses to give them relief
At present we correct ninety-nine in
every hundred of these cases with plain
glasses properly rounded and in proper
com limitations. Another thing that ocu-
lists have learned is that any defect of
vision will manifest itself quicker in a
person weakened by disease than in
any ordinary strong and healthy one.
Up to the age of forty strong consti-
tuition, / have noticed, may continue to
overcome almost any defect of the
eyes. But. as soon as the bodily
strength begins to fail the defect comes
to the front and the sight begins to
weaken. If you strain the optic nerve
by forcing it to do what it should not
do you are certain some day to pay the
penalty. The sight may not only be
permanently injured, but the nervous
system may become derangcd and the
brain affected. Most young persons
who wear glasses are afflicted, find,
with myopia or nearsightedness and
with astigmatism." The reason then
why more glasses are worn than for
merly, is because more defects can now
be remedied BY them and more people
are beginning to find out that their
vision is not what nature intended il
should be.-Chicago Herald.