The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1906-09-25
GLASS EYES COMMON
ARTIFICIAL OPTICS ARE WORN ss
MANY THOUSANDS.

ARTIFICIAL OPTICS ARE WORN sy
MANY THOUSANDS.
The Custom Has Continued From
Egyptian Days to the Present Time.
Only Three Houses In the United
States Produce Them.
! Several thousand people in the
United States are wearing glass eyes,
and, II the proportion of increase of In
jurfes to the eye continue constant, In
ten years there will be 100000 wearers
of glass eyes In this country
A flying splinter In the air, a speck
OF steel from some big building under
construction, chip Of stone from the
stonecutters block, may lodge In the
eye Of the passerby and cause endless
complications. The perferation of the
outer covering Of the eye by foreign
bodies was one of the chief causes for
taking the eye out-enucleation, as it
is called-untl the development Of <
ray surgery, which has saved the sight
of many eyes by locating the foreign
body in time for its safe removal.
One of the commoner diseases follow
ing the Judgment of foreign body in
the eye and generally requiring emu
cIeation is sympathetic ophthalmia, an
affection of the unframed eye, which
Is marked at first by dread of the
light, pain and gradually increasing
dimness of vision. Before the sight in
both eyes is irretrievably lost the ex-
citing eye has to be removed. Other
common diseases whose removal often
depends upon enucleation are sarcoma,
or malignant tumor, and absolute glau-
coma, or hard eyeball"
Eye surgery. the most delicate and
intricate In the scope Of medical
science. is making enormous progress
toward complete surety In its opera
lions. 1t is doing stunts that our
surgeon grandfathers would regard
with amazement. But one much adj
vertised feat 1t has never accom-
plished, despite numberless announce
ments in the press to that effect, and
that is laying out the eyeballs on the
cheek while they were variously OPP
Grated upon and replacing them with
success.
A patient at the New York Post
Graduate Medical school and hospital
recently underwent rather difficult
operation on one eye, and to make his
story more thrilling he described with
much dramatic coloring how there
were forty to fifty docthors sitting In
rows and rows above me, like 1t was at
the theayter. all. thin docthors being
students from iverywheres In this
country and from the ould country,
an some haythens from Japan. an
vans from England, an, well, they
was there from all over the world, just
TO learn of me what to do whin they
whit back to their own patients-an'
whin the surgeon who was dom all the
business, the Big Bug. NAME in the
hospital-why. people would pay him a
thousand dollars to have him opyrate
In their eyes, and / didn't have to pay
i'm a cint-why, whin he TUX out my
eyes an they was hanging on my
cheeks like you read about. all thin
fellers thought 1t was so great that
they came down to look at thin close,
an some of thin tux a pictyure of me
as lay there with my eyes out; an If
ye don't believe It, We can ask to see
wan of thin pictyures." This thrilling
experience found its way into print,
but 1t receives the mark of absolute
discredit from the big. Bug" himself.
who forcibly remarked that 'all these
reports about removing the eyes and
then replacing them are pure and utter
nonsense. The eye cannot be lifted
one-eighth of an inch from its socket
without destroying the sight forever
So when the eye comes out 1t is out
for all time, and only glass eye can
be substituted. and In this way the
work of the hospital is supplemented
with the achievement of the optical
prothetician. He is the last resort of
the eyeiess one, and, although surgery
slaves him off as long as possible, an
artificial pupil, movable in accordance
with the other eye If certain muscles
In the socket are left intact, and so
true to life that the keenest inspection
often fails to detect it, Is a boon to the
deformity, thus removing an obstacle
to his success In life.
Only three houses In the United
States make glass eyes, and they are
located In New York city. A large num-
Der of false orbs, however, of an in
ferior quality come from Thuringia, in
the heart Of the romantic Black forest
of Germany. Here Is the home of the
industry and from here come most of
the glass eyes that the regular optician
keeps in stock The American maker,
on the other hand. is exporting his finer
goods to every quarter of the earth.
one house alone making 10000 a year
for export. OF the other eye making
houses In the world there are five in
Paris, three in London and two In Biz
mingham, so that there is an industry
which. it may be readily seen, is not
overcrowded.
Eye making was practiced In the
days of the oldest civilization. There
Is authentic record of artificial eyes
that were made In the reign of Ptolemy
H.. who grasped the scepter In Egypt
In the fourth century before Christ.
Eyes were at first made of metal,
SlLnGT copper VI kOlQ VI eilNGl, cudpcu
into fat disks and painted to initiate
nature. In the days Of Ambrose Pare.
the celebrated French surgeon of the
sixteenth century, a pointed representa-
ton of the whole eye and eyelids was
fastened in front of the orbit and held
In place by a steel spring that fitted
the upper circumference of the head
Eyes have been made Of wax and eel
luloid and vulcanite, and horse not
long ago presented an improved APP
pearance with an eye of horn. Eyes
were also made of porcelain when that
came into use, and their effect was de-
cidedly more hfelike.
A Haitian general once upon time
lost an eye In battle with the Spaniards
and sent to Paris for another to replace
it He received an expensive and
choice specimen from the Paris maker.
but because it contained a suggestion
OF yellow. which was the color of the
hated sDan!agds The HAITIAN s9laler