The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1893-01-06
THE MODERN OPTIC.
Effects of Civilization Upon the
Human Eye.
Great Dangers to Mans Eyesight brought
About by Living In Large Towns-In-
creased Demands Upon the
Visual Power. .

The last one hundred years have in
creased the need and capacity for work
upon small objects near at hand One
of the questions occurring to the mind
is, do these different and increased de-
mands bring increased facility and ca
pacity to the human eye? Eyes are now
used in ways never imagined by our re-
mote ancestors, possibly never dreamed
of in the oriental countries. Whatever
there may have been in the way of
sculpture among the Greeks demanding
artistic and accurate vision, there was
no typesetting, no electric telegraphy,
no stenography and no typewriter. The
eye of the patriarch Job was consti-
tuted at birth and went through life To
old age very much such an optical in
strument as that of the English squire
who devotes himself to an outdoor life
in the eighteenth or nincteeth century;
but Job had no printed books to be
guile the tedium and pain of his seat in
the sand and ashes The examination
of the mummics in the Egyptian mauso-
leum shows that there has been no
change in the anatomical conformation
of the human ear in four thousand
years. and there is no evidence that
man eve: but the difficulty of preserv-
ing the eve for examination centuries
after 1t has ceased to see prevents us
from proving this. A writer in the Cos
mopolitan thinks it is safe to say that
it has not changed in any essential of
anatomical form during the time of the
human race upon the earth. But the
demands upon il and its occupations
are much more exacting and very diff
fcrcnt from those that obtained among
the classic Greeks and Romans or the
patriarchal Arabians-
The tendency of the people of our civ
iliZation to live in large towns, in the
bad air and with the absence of light
incidental to such life, may have
brought the human eye into many more
dangers than those that come to II In
rural occupation Yet accidents to the
human eye in rural life are not at all
rare. 1t may be that civilization gen
orally attains the lofticst plane in large
cities. where intellectual activity Is
most intense. With this come increas-
| ing demands upon the visual power,
| and often under improper conditions.
| But if the nineteenth century civiliza-
| ton of great towns has brought great
| dangers to the sight, 1t has also
achieved great triumphs in the matter
| of examining the eye, so that we may
| determine and increase its power for
| work and find ont and cure its diseases
| 1t is perfectly possible, by means OF the
| instruments Of the nineteenth century,
| to exactly learn the optical condition of
| an eve, 10 decide just what glasses, if
any, are needed for its perfect working;
and it is also possible TO look in upon it,
and by the appearance of it tissues and
its blood vessels To decide IS to the ex-
istence of serious disease, when there
are few other symptoms that point to IT,
when there may be none besides TO be
found in the body that positively prove
it.
There are two classes of disease, one
constitutional and the other local. which
! illustrate this latter statement: the eye
mirror opthalmoscopc is the instru-
ment by which such things are settled.
Bright's disease, n name carrying dread
to many household, is the constitu-
| tional disease I referred To. In not n few
cases the diagnosis of il is made by the
| examination of the retina with the eye
mirror The expert viii make no mis-
take if the eye gives evidence of il, for
its signs are positive, in minute bleed
ings from the blood vessels and peculiar
fawn-colored spots on the rctina- The
surgeon drc;fds to find them, because
| they are evidence of an advanced stage
of the malady which prcmaturely de
| stroys so many lives Bright's disease
| is. in fact,a degeneration of many of the
tissues of the body, the walls of the
arteries being among them In 10 part
of the body can this degeneration be SC
readily detected as in the retina of tho
| eye.