The Daily Missoulian., 1910-12-04
OUR MOST COMMON
DEFECT
HOW OUR HEALTH AND THAT OF
OUR CHILD Is SACRIFICED
BY PREJUDICE.

| Hypermetropic subjects often have
remarkable acuteness of sight They
are very apt (when young adults) to
boast Of their power Of vision. They
can often read all the st-types made
for distance (20 feet or more) without
an error. If the defect exists In
child, the parents will frequently tell
how the child can see things with dis
tinctness which possibly they them
selves cannot see at all; how they have
tested its eyes from time to time; how
absurd. the idea seems to them and
their friends that the vision of the
child is defective. and how Unnecessary
the use of glasses seems to them
(even If The eye is abnormaD so long
as the child can get along without
them In some cases no amount of
explanation or pleading will persuade
the parents to have the opthalmo-
scope used upon the child's eyes in
order 10 decide the question of the
existence of latent" far -sightedness.
There is a prejudice among laymen
and some medical men that glasses are
an injury when they can be avoided,
because. as they say, "a person be-
comes SO dependent upon them when
he once puts them on" This argument
should be exactly reversed, and con-
strued as follows: Because nature
becomes dependent upon glass
which gives relief and corrects an
existing strain upon the eye, no time
should be lost in affording this relief"
Should hip splint be avoided
(when the pain in the joint is arrested
by IT. because the patient feels his
dependence upon the splint? Should
child be allowed to go through life
with deformed eye simply because
the defect is not apparent to himself
or his friends on. account of an un-
naturally developed ciliary muscle,
which for a time renders the eye
capable of getting along tolerably we'll
in spite of it's deformity?
More harm is being done today to
the community at large by this fall
-lacious argument than Is possible to
compute. Thousands of sufferers from
sick headache and neuralgia are to-
day struggling along through life with
an optical defect uncorrected and, in
many instances. after costly expert
left in despair of cure. / speak strong
ly upon this point. because I believe
that the gastric symptoms which ac-
company typical attacks of sidk head
ache are not to be explained [as they
commonly are) on the ground that
the liver Is Inactive" or that "dys-
pepsia exists" or that the gastric
juice is weak" or that the patient
uses tobacco to excess" or that "he
has been living too high" Every one
who has suffered for years with these
attacks knows that they often occur
without explainable cause; that they
are cured sometimes by eating, dSinlS-
ing and smoking, and made worse at
other times by similar indulgences or
excesses; that every known. remedy
is apt, sooner or later, to prove in
operative, and that sure specific for
them Is unknown among the drugs of
our pharmacopeia. These subjects also
know that life is rendered almost un-
endurable by the attacks al times.
They are tractable patients and will
try anything, live in any way specf-l
fled and bear any privation without
murmur, If it will insure a cure.
believe, from personal experience
of my own of this kond (Which is un-
necessary to relate here), and from
some experience also in examining the
eyes of this class of sufferers, that
the symptoms of sick headache are
reflex In character to a large extent,
and are due, primarily, in almost every
case to some optical defect We can
easily demonstrate that disturbed brain
action from eye-strain may produce in
healthy child and in some adults all
of the symptoms of these attacks in
few minutes. Why is it irrational,
therefore. to affirm that brain dis
turbed by the constant efforts made
to use eyes. which are abnormal in
respect to the refraction, accommoda-
tion or the equilibrium which should
exist between its various muscles,
may manifest its disturbed state BY
nausea, headache. vomiting, dizziness,
constipation and other evidences of
imperfect performance of the func-
| tions of the viscera? Does not our
central nervous system regulate and di-
rectly control those functions? 1t it
not as probable that the master, when
| upset. disturbs the servants under him,
as to advance the argument that the
servants themselves are the all i'm
portant factors in the causation?
| DIR. WILLIAM E. DODD,
| Butte, Mont.
I DIR. Dodd will reopen his office at the
Savoy hotel Tuesday, December 6. All
/ examinations are free. His method of
fitting glasses insures permanent re-
lief No drugs or drops used, hence
no danger.