many times to hear medical men of intelligence support such a statement, and to urge their patients to avoid glasses as long as possible, in order that they might not become dependent upon them. To those who hold that idea, I would simply say that if they will read the article written by Dr. Loring upon this subject ("Harper's Monthly," August, 1879), and one by myself on a somewhat similar field ("New York Medical Journal," February, 1886), they will be convinced of their error and the sad results that may occur from such ignorance.
I earnestly advise, therefore, every parent to consult some expert (not an optician), before sending a child to school, and thus to ascertain if the organs of sight be anatomically perfect. If they are not so, the health and mental vigor of the child are liable to be slowly undermined.
I have seen serious damage done both to the health and mind of a child by the neglect on the part of parents to remedy an optical defect early by glasses. Many evil results may arise from the neglect of this simple precaution. Children very often become cross-eyed—the laughing-stock of their playmates—in consequence of an optical defect that has not been corrected early. Again, they frequently develop habits of idleness and incur the censure of their instructors on account of some optical defect, because their eyes cause them an indescribable sense of weariness when study is attempted, which a child is unable to withstand. I have encountered many adults who have struggled on to manhood with an ocular defect of which they were unconscious—suffering excruciating headache and many other symptoms of nervous derangement. When glasses brought relief at last, they have experienced an unknown sense of delight in reading and mental effort. I recall an instance of this character where a patient of mine would frequently rub a blistering lotion into the hair to relieve a headache that was almost incessant, and unfitted him for mental or physical labor. Glasses brought about a cure that was to him miraculous. The eyes of a child are fortunately more pliable and elastic, if we may use such an expression, than of an adult; hence some optical defects may be compensated for by muscular effort for years, although always with detriment to the physical vigor.
It is a difficult matter in many instances to make laymen, and even those of the medical profession who have given this matter little attention, appreciate the difference between "seeing without effort" and "seeing with eye-strain." The perfectly constructed eye should bring the images of all objects removed from it beyond the twenty-foot limit to a focus exactly upon the retina without any effort on its own part. It should be able to afford distinct vision of distant objects while passive; and thus rest itself from the fatigue of focusing objects within a circle of twenty feet radius. The far-sighted eye knows no such repose during the wakeful hours. Although the vision is very acute in most far-sighted children and in spite of the fact that
