Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-31
THE UPRIGHT VISION
Belief Of Scientists Concerning the
Vision Of Infants-Case Of an
Eght-Year-old Boy.
From the chicago Tribune.


Local physicians at Lakeview. Iowa. have
been interested in the case of eight-year-
old Paul Taylor. who sees things upside
down. He does not belong to the fanciful
race OF the Head Hoppers either. Simply
looking out upon the world every day he
gets the impression that the sky is where
the ground ought to be, and he sees other
boys running and playing. all with their
heads hanging down into the sky and their
Feet sticking like hy's to the ground
above When he writes his letters with his
right hand the sentences run from right
to left. while the letters themselves appear
upside down.
Odd beyond even this interesting state
ment the average reader will consider the
theory of DR.. Albert B. Hale, who main
tafns that every other child at one period
OF Its life saw things in just this way. and
continued to do so for a more or less
heightened period. until Its educated facul-
ties admitted Of its sub-conscious reversal
OF the inverted image pictured upon the
retina: DR.. Hale is one of the admitted au-
thor1ties upon this subject In Chicago, and
has made an exhaustive study of the phe-
nomenon of mirror writing in children
and the mentally unbalanced. This mir
ror writing is such as the Iowa boy pro-
duces, and Of it's effect and its cause DIR.
Hale says:
Inverted Image.
THE outer world is impressed upon the
retina In an inverted image. 1t is only by
experience. laboriously acquired, that we
learn to interpret this image and to pro-
duce upright writing. The child and the
reeble-minded, lacking this experience or
unable to acquire it, reproduce the visual
image In incorrect Spatial relation, hence in
mirror or completely inverted writing
The adult who may be suddenly deprived
nc rodJI 70 Y>,fv,
conditions, and hence produces the same
results that we see in the child.
In general way it may be said that
the infant has no Senses said Dr. Hale
IL sees nothing more than blurred light
IN a room; 1t has no sense of touch; when
1t rs larger it may even walk into a closed
door as If in expectation of it's giving way,
ana when the door does not fall aside it
may walk into the wall in the same man.
ner-learning everywhere as it goes
In this gaining of knowledge, it may be
said that sight is the last of the senses
to be awakened to normal pitch. 1t might
De estimated that the normal child is still
correcting his vision when he has been
walking and talking for weeks or months.
Long after familiarity with the letters of
the alphabet have enabled the child to pro-
duce all save S, and z in their correct
proportion and shape one may find the
child turning the s and z wrong way to.
and beginning the letter with a down
stroke. Not infrequently an adult, unused
these letters wrong-all because of an I'M
corrected child vision of them.
Retina and Brain.
The manner in which the inverted image
on the retina is made upright to the brain
receiving the impression is something over
which the doctors disagree. One of the
earliest of these explanations was that the
one nerve fibre connecting the retina with
the brain brought the upper portion of the
retina into contact lower down on the brain
surface. while the lower portion of the
image receiving lens was attached higher
on the brain, the left and right nerves
winding in the same relative manner, thus
serving to invert completely the image cast
upon the retina.
In recognition of space, as it appears to
the eye, Prof. Stratton has insisted that it
Is easier to recognize up and down In their
space relations than it is for the child to
recognize right and left. The professor
put himself as nearly as possible In the
place Of the child by the adjustment of
lenses before his eyes, in which the retinal
image was received without inversion. In
this condition, Notwithstanding his wide
senSory education, he found himself in an
extremely awkward situation.
Something akin to this experiment with
the tense, Is that which confronts the per-
son looking into mirror in order to guide
his hands in tie other difficult manual
adjustment of some unusual adjustment of
some complicated mechanism. Especially
will the person find it difficult to dis
tinguish the right hand from the left, and
to make any haste with any degree Of GER
tainty. In like manner the prison sitting
in the stern of boat, facing the man at
the oars. finds it difficult to call right" or
left oar in guiding the oarsman.