The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-01-23

OtA&e Optical S0clety, N1er1ueh' o A reputable optician of many years i experience. stated. in recent adver' tisement, that seventy-five out O, ! every hundred persons who wear glasses. are wearing wrong glasses. ! Dr. George M. Gould's article, Fifty wrong Prescriptions by Ocullsts printed a few months ago in the Med ical Journal, apparently in some de- ! gree at least. confirms the statement. Dr. Edward Jackson writes: "F'ol { each eye there are comparatively re" combinations of lenses that would pe of positive benefit, and but one thai ! would be best. That one IS to De ols- | covered only by prolonged, pa1nstak1ns X application of exact methods of meas u.-ement."
 There is no doubt that many wrone diagnoses have been made by potr medical and non-medical refractlonlsts An explanation of some of the errors &nay be found in the method of exam that most refractionists Chose espec- 4ally of the older schooD use the sub. 4ectiye method exclusively. We all know how easily mistakes may De made with 1t. Many times nervous ness in the person being examined causes wrong answers to De gwen. Many other times mistakes are due to the operators lack of knowledge, or intuition perhaps. of the best way to bring out correct replies.
 But all refractionists, no matter how skillful they may be in subjective testing, are but poorly equipped TOT the serious work of fitting defective eyes. until they have gained mastery of the shadow test. This far more scientific method is purely objective, rendering questions and answers prac- tically unnecessary.
 The following case,-a comparatively recent one,-will serve to show its su- pertority over the older, subjective method. nation Oct 21, 1908. Her eyes were unusually large and full, suggesting myopia. She thought her glasses might need changing, as she had late ay suffered a good deal with headache. She was wearing 5. cylinder axis 1SO. viSion without glasses was about 20-120 o. U. Muscle balance wasChor- gestion of retinal vessels), also nor maI There was a history of spinal meningitis, however, at an early age
 Her minus cylinders increased vision to 2O-S0 O. U.. and she could read NO. 2 Jaeger at IA inches with them SUD 1eCt1Veiy, all Otncr I0ISeS, OI IOAhOA1A0- tions of lenses were refused as being mot so good" Questioned, she said her glasses were fitted six years ago, and had been worn comfortably until recently, when upon attempting to do continuous near work, severe distress had set in.
 Appearances all pointed strongly to near sightedness; the low distance wis., ion, and the much better near; the full, almost bulging shape of the. eyes; the fact that plus lenses of any kind d1- unfinished vision, and the further fact that she had worn strong minus lenses comfortably for six years. What more could any purely subjective ex- aminer ask to prove the case was condition and not a theory? Ana who among us unskilled in shadow work, but would probably have con- sidered her fitting as good as any to be found?
 I confess I supposed her to be en- tirely myopic, the only thing that pug zled being the failure of strong minus lenses to give better distant vision. You may imagine my astonishment then, when upon perfunctorily using the plane mirror there appeared in the midst of a contradictorally moving mass of shadows, strong, slow, ver- tical band following the motion of the mirror. A mental Eureka was re- pressed with difficulty. For it is no