BETTER EYESIGHT
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PREVENTION AND CURE OF IMPERFECT
SIGHT WITHOUT GLASSES
July, 1919 - June, 1930 - 132 Magazine
Issues
Central Fixation Publishing Co.
New York,
N. Y. USA
July, 1919
Flashing & The Fundamental
Principle -
Do you read imperfectly?
Do you read imperfectly? Can you observe then
that when you look at the first word, or the first letter, of a
sentence you do not see best where you are looking; that you see other
words, or other letters, just as well as or better than the ones you
are looking at? Do you observe also that the harder you try to see the
worse you see?
Now close your eyes and rest them, remembering
some color, like black or white, that you can remember perfectly. Keep
them closed until they feel rested, or until the feeling of strain has
been completely relieved. Now open them and look at the first word or
letter of a sentence for a fraction of a second. If you have been able
to relax, partially or completely, you will have a flash of improved
or clear vision, and the area seen best will be smaller.
After
opening the eyes for this fraction of a second, close them again
quickly, still remembering the color, and keep them closed until they
again feel rested. Then again open them for a fraction of a second.
Continue this alternate resting of the eyes and flashing of the
letters for a time, and you may soon find that you can keep your eyes
open longer than a fraction of a second without losing the improved
vision.
If your trouble is with distant instead of near vision,
use the same method with distant letters.
In this way you can
demonstrate for yourself the fundamental principles of the cure of
imperfect sight by treatment without glasses.
If you fail, ask someone with perfect sight to help you.
Do You Read Imperfectly? - This first article and others are placed on
page 2 on the inside cover of each monthly Better Eyesight Magazine
issue. The articles consist of a variety of the Best of Dr. Bates
Original Natural Eyesight Improvement Treatments, Activities. The
student can copy, paste these into a small fine print booklet to carry
in a pocket and practice in your spare time.
FOREWORD
WHEN the United States
entered the European war recruits for general military service were
required to have a visual acuity of 20/40 in one eye and 20/100 in the
other.1 This very low standard, although it is a matter of common
knowledge that it was interpreted with great liberality, proved to be
the greatest physical obstacle to the raising of an army. Under it
21.68 per cent of the registrants were rejected, 13 per cent more than
for any other single cause.2
Later the standard was lowered3 so
that men might be "unconditionally accepted for general military
service" with a vision of 20/100 in each eye without glasses, provided
one eye was correctible to 20/40. For special or limited service they
might be accepted with only 20/200 in each eye without glasses,
provided one was correctible to 20/40. At the same time a great many
defects other than errors of refraction were admitted in both classes,
such as squint not interfering with vision, slight nystagmus, and
color blindness. Even total blindness in one eye was not a cause for
rejection to the limited service class, provided it was not due to
progressive or organic change, and the vision of the other eye was
normal. Under this incredible standard eye defects still remained one
of three leading causes of rejection.
Over ten per cent, (10.65)
of the registrants were disqualified by them, while defects of the
bones and joints and of the heart and blood-vessels ran respectively
one and one and a half percent higher.4 Most of the revelations about
the physical condition of the American people which resulted from the
operation of the draft law had been anticipated by persons who had
been giving their attention to such matters - and whose warnings had
long fallen upon deaf ears - but it is doubtful if anyone had formed
an adequate conception of the truth regarding the condition of the
nation's eyesight. That it should be impossible to raise an army with
even half normal vision in one eye, and that one man in every ten
rejected for military service should have been unable, even by the aid
of glasses, to attain this standard, is a situation so appalling that
words fail to characterize it, so incredible that only the most
unimpeachable evidence could compel belief in it. Under these
circumstances it seems to me the plain duty of anyone who has found
any means of controlling the evil in question to give the facts the
widest possible publicity.
Most writers on ophthalmology today
appear to believe that defective eyesight is part of the price we must
pay for civilization. The human eye, they say, was not designed for
the uses to which it is now put. Eons before there were any schools,
or printing presses, electric lights, or moving pictures, its
evolution was complete. In those days it served the needs of the human
animal perfectly, but it is not to be expected, we are told, that it
should respond without injury to the new demands. By care it is
thought that this injury may be minimized, but to eliminate it wholly
is considered to be too much to hope for. Such is the depressing
conclusion to which the monumental labors of a hundred years and more
have led us.
I have no hesitation in stating that this conclusion
is unqualifiedly wrong. Nature did not blunder when she made the human
eye, but has given us in this intricate and wonderful mechanism, upon
which so much of the usefulness as well as the pleasure of life
depends, an organ as fully equal to the needs of civilization as to
those of the Stone Age. After thirty-three years of clinical and
experimental work, I have demonstrated to my own satisfaction and that
of others that the eye is capable of meeting the utmost demands of
civilization; that the errors of refraction which have so long dogged
the footsteps of progress, and which have made the raising of an army
during the recent war so difficult, are both preventable and curable;
and that many other forms of imperfect sight, long held to be
incurable, may be either improved or completely relieved.
All
these discoveries have been published in the medical press, but while
their reliability has never been publicly disputed, the medical
profession has so far failed to make use of them. Meantime the sight
of our children is being destroyed daily in the schools, and our young
men and women are entering life with a defect which, if uncorrected,
must be a source of continual misery and expense to them, sometimes
ending in blindness or economic ruin. Admitting for the sake of
argument that I may be wrong in my conclusion that these things are
unnecessary, it is time I was proven to be wrong. I should not be
allowed to play on the forlorn hope of a suffering world. If I am
right, as I know I am, a suffering world should no longer be deprived
of the benefit of my discoveries.
To give publicity to these
discoveries and arouse discussion regarding them is one of the objects
for which this magazine has been started. At the same time its pages
are open to everyone who has any light to throw upon the problem. It
has too long been the custom of ophthalmologists to disregard every
fact at variance with the accepted theories. Such facts, when
observed, have usually not been published, and when published they
have either been ignored or explained away in some more or less
plausible manner. The management of this magazine wishes to make it a
medium for the publication of such facts, which, it may safely be
asserted, are known to every ophthalmologist of any experience, and
which, if they had received proper consideration, would long ago have
led us out of the blind alley in which we are now languishing.
While I think it may be truthfully said that many of my methods are
new and original, other physicians, both in this country and in
Europe, have cured themselves and others by treatment without glasses.
Lay persons have done the same.
Fine Print – For Clear Close Vision
In The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Oliver
Wendell Holmes published a very remarkable case of the cure of
presbyopia.
"There is now living in New York State," he says, "an
old gentleman who, perceiving his sight to fail, immediately took to
exercising it on the finest print, and in this way fairly bullied
Nature out of her foolish habit of taking liberties at five-and-forty,
or thereabouts. And now this old gentleman performs the most
extraordinary feats with his pen, showing that his eyes must be a pair
of microscopes. I should be afraid to say how much he writes in the
compass of a half-dime, whether the Psalms or the Gospels, or the
Psalms and the Gospels, I won't be positive."5 An officer in the
American Expeditionary Forces, whose letter is published elsewhere,
wrote to me about a year ago that he has cured himself of presbyopia,
and after half a lifetime of misery was entirely free from eye
discomfort.
There must be many more of these cases, and we want
to hear of them.
(Five and forty=fifties,
forties… year of age.) Reading fine print maintains clear close and
distant vision at all ages and keeps the eyes healthy, prevents
development of eye diseases.
FUNDAMENTAL FACTS
For about seventy years it has been believed that the eye accommodates
for vision at different distances by changing the curvature of the
lens, and this theory has given birth to another, namely, that errors
of refraction are due to a permanent organic change in the shape of
the eyeball. On these two ideas the whole system of treating errors of
refraction is based at the present time.
My experiments and
clinical observations have demonstrated that both these theories are
wrong.6 They have shown:
(1) That the lens is not a factor in
accommodation;
(2) That the change of focus necessary for vision
at different distances is brought about by the action of the superior
and inferior obliques, which, by their contraction and relaxation,
change the length of the eyeball as the length of the camera is
changed by the shortening and lengthening of the bellows;
(3)
That errors of refraction are due to the abnormal action of these
muscles and of the recti, the obliques being responsible for myopia
and the recti for hypermetropia, while both may combine in the
production of astigmatism;
(4) That this abnormal action of the muscles on the outside of the
eyeball is always due to mental strain of some kind.
This being the case it
follows that all errors of refraction can be cured by relaxation. All
methods of treatment, therefore, are simply different ways of
obtaining relaxation. And because it is impossible to relax the eye
muscles without relaxing the mind - and the relaxation of the mind
means the relaxation of the whole body - it also follows that
improvement in the eyesight is always accompanied by an improvement in
health and mental efficiency.
The fact that all errors of refraction are functional can often be
demonstrated within five minutes. When a person with myopia,
hypermetropia, or astigmatism, looks at a blank wall without trying to
see, the retinoscope, with a plane mirror, at six feet, indicates, in
flashes or more continuously no error of refraction. The conditions
should be favorable for relaxation and the doctor should be as much at
his ease as the patient.
It can also be demonstrated with the
retinoscope that persons with normal sight do not have it all the
time.7 When the vision of such persons becomes imperfect at the
distance it will be found that myopic refraction has been produced;8
when it becomes imperfect at the near point it will be found that
hypermetropia has been produced.
CENTRAL FIXATION
An invariable symptom of all abnormal conditions of the eyes, whether
functional or organic, is the loss of central fixation. When a person
with perfect vision looks at a letter on the Snellen test card he can
always observe that all the other letters in his field of vision are
seen less distinctly. He can also observe that when he looks at the
bottom of even the smallest letter on the card, the top appears less
black and less distinct than the part directly regarded, while the
same is true of a letter of diamond type, or of the smallest letters
that are printed. When a person with imperfect sight looks at the card
he can usually observe that when he can read a line of letters he is
able to look at one letter of a line and see it better than the
others, but the letters of a line he cannot read may look all alike,
or those not directly regarded may even be seen better than the one
fixed.
These conditions are due to the fact that when the sight
is normal the sensitiveness of the fovea is normal, but when the sight
is imperfect, from whatever cause, the sensitiveness of the fovea is
lowered, so that the eye sees equally well, or even better, with other
parts of the retina. Contrary to what is generally believed, the part
seen best when the sight is normal is extremely small.
The
text-books say that at twenty feet an area having a diameter of a
quarter of an inch can be seen with maximum vision, but anyone who
tries at this distance to see every part of one of the small letters
of the Snellen test card - the diameter of which is about a quarter of
an inch - equally well at one time will immediately become myopic. The
fact is that the nearer the point of maximum vision approaches a
mathematical point, which has no area, the better the sight.
The cause of this loss of function in the center of sight is mental
strain; and as all abnormal conditions of the eyes, organic as well as
functional, are accompanied by mental strain, all such conditions must
necessarily be accompanied by loss of central fixation. When the mind
is under a strain the eye usually goes more or less blind. The center
of sight goes blind first, partially or completely, according to the
degree of the strain, and if the strain is great enough the whole or
the greater part of the retina may be involved. When the vision of the
center of sight has been suppressed, partially or completely, the
patient can no longer see the point which he is looking at best, but
sees objects not regarded directly as well, or better, because the
sensitiveness of the retina has now become approximately equal in
every part, or is even better in the outer part than in the center.
Therefore in all cases of defective vision the patient is unable to
see best where he is looking. When the person
with imperfect vision sees the peripheral field clearest, it is not as
clear as the central field is when the vision is normal.
This condition is sometimes so extreme that the patient may look as
far away from an object as it is possible to see it and yet see it
just as well as when looking directly at it. In one case it had gone
so far that the patient could see only with the edge of the retina on
the nasal side. In other words, she could not see her fingers in front
of her face, but could see them if she held them at the outer side of
her eye. She had no error of refraction, showing that while every
error of refraction is accompanied by eccentric fixation, the strain
which causes the one condition is different from that which produces
the other. The patient had been examined by specialists in this
country and Europe, who attributed her blindness to disease of the
optic nerve, or brain; but the fact that vision was restored by
relaxation demonstrated that the condition had been due simply to
mental strain.
Eccentric fixation, even in its lesser degrees, is
so unnatural that great discomfort, or even pain, can be produced in a
few seconds by trying to see every part of an area three or four
inches in extent at twenty feet, or even less, or an area of an inch
or less at the near point, equally well at one time, while at the same
time the retinoscope will demonstrate that an error of refraction has
been produced. This strain, when it is habitual, leads to all sorts of
abnormal conditions and is, in fact, at the bottom of most eye
troubles, both functional and organic. The discomfort and pain may be
absent, however, in the chronic condition, and it is an encouraging
symptom when the patient begins to experience them.
Natural health improvement doctors state; When health or vision is
impaired, pain and other symptoms occur. When health/vision impairment
increases, sometimes the pain, other uncomfortable symptoms vanish,
are not felt. New symptoms may take their place. When healing occurs
and the health/vision is reversing back to normal, is being
corrected/cured; the old pains, symptoms may temporarily re-appear as
the health/vision is passing backwards through previous beginning
stages of the health or vision problem. Then, as the health/vision
improves to perfect health, clear vision; the pain, symptoms are
completely removed. Complete recovery without passing through pain,
uncomfortable symptoms can also occur.
The center of the retina,
macula and fovea centralis with its many cones produce the clearest
vision and brightest color in the center of the visual field. The
peripheral field of the retina produces less clear vision and less
color in the peripheral field of vision. When the vision is normal,
clear; the center of the visual field is clearest and the peripheral
field less clear. The exact center of the visual field is produced by
the fovea centralis and is the size of the pointed end of a pin and
produces very clear vision, much clearer than 20/20 and brightest
color, fine detailed vision, ability to see very small parts of
objects at close and far distances.
Central fixation – To look
at/see one small part of a object clearest at a time in the center of
the visual field. Shifting is combined with central fixation- The
eyes, center of the visual field moves, shifts continually from part
to part (point to point) on a object to see the object clear. The
center of the visual field also moves with the eyes from object to
object seeing one object at as time clearest.
Natural Eyesight
Improvement returns perfect clear central vision and brings the
peripheral to its maximum possible clarity.
When the eye possesses central fixation it not only possesses perfect
sight, but it is perfectly at rest and can be used indefinitely
without fatigue. It is open and quiet; no nervous movements are
observable; and when it regards a point at the distance the visual
axes are parallel. In other words, there are no muscular
insufficiencies. This fact is not generally known. The text-books
state that muscular insufficiencies occur in eyes having normal sight,
but I have never seen such a case. The muscles of the face and of the
whole body are also at rest, and when the condition is habitual there
are no wrinkles or dark circles around the eyes.
In most cases of eccentric fixation, on the contrary, the eye quickly
tires, and its appearance, with that of the face, is expressive of
effort or strain. The ophthalmoscope reveals that the eyeball moves at
irregular intervals, from side to side, vertically or in other
directions. These movements are often so extensive as to be manifest
by ordinary inspection, and are sometimes sufficiently marked to
resemble nystagmus. Nervous movements of the eyelids may also be
noted, either by ordinary inspection, or by lightly touching the lid
of one eye while the other regards an object either at the near point
or the distance. The visual axes are never parallel, and the deviation
from the normal may become so marked as to constitute the condition of
squint. Strain, eccentric fixation, diffusion
causes squint, crossed, wandering eyes, imperfect convergence,
divergence. Redness of the conjuctiva and of the margins of the
lids, wrinkles around the eyes, dark circles beneath them and tearing
are other symptoms of eccentric fixation.
Eccentric fixation is a
symptom of strain, and is relieved by any method that relieves strain;
but in some cases the patient is cured just as soon as he is able to
demonstrate the facts of central fixation. When he comes to realize,
through actual demonstration of the fact, that
(when experiencing blur, eccentric fixation, diffusion, not seeing
with the center of the visual field) he does not see best where
he is looking, and that when he looks a sufficient distance away from
a point (when the eyes are working correct,
relaxed, with central fixation) he can see it worse than when
he looks directly at it, he becomes able, in some way, to reduce the
distance to which he has to look in order to see worse, until he can
look directly at the top of a small letter and see the bottom worse,
or look at the bottom and see the top worse. The smaller the letter
regarded in this way, or the shorter the distance the patient has to
look away from a letter in order to see the opposite part
indistinctly, the greater the relaxation and the better the sight.
When it becomes possible to look at the bottom of a letter and see the
top worse, or to look at the top and see the bottom worse, it becomes
possible to see the letter perfectly black and distinct. At first such
vision may come only in flashes. The letter will come out distinctly
for a moment and then disappear. But gradually, if the practice is
continued, central fixation will become habitual.
Most patients
can readily look at the bottom of the big C and see the top worse; but
in some cases it is not only impossible for them to do this, but
impossible for them to let go of the large letters at any distance at
which they can be seen. In these extreme cases it sometimes requires
considerable ingenuity, first to demonstrate to the patient that he
does not see best where he is looking, and then to help him to see an
object worse when be looks away from it than when he looks directly at
it. The use of a strong light as one of the points of fixation, or of
two lights five or ten feet apart, has been found helpful, the patient
when he looks away from the light being able to see it less bright
more readily than he can see a black letter worse when he looks away
from it. It then becomes easier for him to see the letter worse when
he looks away from it. This method was successful in the following
case:
A patient with vision of 3/200, when she looked at a point
a few feet away from the big C, said she saw the letter better than
when she looked directly at it. Her attention was called to the fact
that her eyes soon became tired and that her vision soon failed when
she saw things in this way. Then she was directed to look at a bright
object about three feet away from the card, and this attracted her
attention to such an extent that she became able to see the large
letter on the test card worse, after which she was able to look back
at it and see it better. It was demonstrated to her that she could do
one of two things: look away and see the letter better than she did
before, or look away and see it worse. She then became able to see it
worse all the time when she looked three feet away from it. Next she
became able to shorten the distance successively to two feet, one foot
and six inches, with a constant improvement in vision; and finally she
became able to look at the bottom of the letter and see the top worse,
or look at the top and see the bottom worse. With practice she became
able to look at the smaller letters in the same way, and finally she
became able to read the ten line at twenty feet. By the same method
also she became able to read diamond type, first at twelve inches and
then at three inches. By these simple measures alone she became able,
in short, to see best where she was looking, and her cure was
complete.
The highest degrees of eccentric fixation occur in the
high degrees of myopia, and in these cases, since the sight is best at
the near point, the patient is benefited by practicing seeing worse at
this point. The distance can then be gradually extended until it
becomes possible to do the same thing at twenty feet. One patient with
a high degree of myopia said that the farther she looked away from an
electric light the better she saw it, but by alternately looking at
the light at the near point and looking away from it she became able,
in a short time, to see it brighter when she looked directly at it
than when she looked away from it. Later she became able to do the
same thing at twenty feet, and then she experienced a wonderful
feeling of relief. No words, she said, could adequately describe it.
Every nerve seemed to be relaxed, and a feeling of comfort and rest
permeated her whole body. Afterward her progress was rapid. She soon
became able to look at one part of the smallest letters on the card
and see the rest worse, and then she became able to read the letters
at twenty feet.
On the principle that a burnt child dreads the
fire, some patients are benefited by consciously making their sight
worse. When they learn, by actual demonstration of the facts, just how
their visual defects are produced, they unconsciously avoid the
unconscious strain which causes them. When the degree of eccentric
fixation is not too extreme to be increased, therefore, it is a
benefit to patients to teach them how to increase it. When a patient
has consciously lowered his vision and produced discomfort and even
pain by trying to see the big C, or a whole line of letters, equally
well at one time, he becomes better able to correct the unconscious
effort of the eye to see all parts of a smaller area equally well at
one time.
(Experience strain=learn to avoid
it.)
In learning to see best where he is looking it is
usually best for the patient to think of the point not directly
regarded as being seen less distinctly than the point he is looking
at, instead of thinking of the point fixed as being seen best, as the
latter practice has a tendency, in most cases, to intensify the strain
under which the eye is already laboring. One part of an object is seen
best only when the mind is content to see the greater part of it
indistinctly, and as the degree of relaxation increases the area of
the part seen worse increases until that seen best becomes merely a
point.
(Exact center of visual field,
fovea centralis, clearer than 20/20)
The limits of vision
depend upon the degree of central fixation. A person may be able to
read a sign half a mile away when he sees the letters all alike, but
when taught to see one letter best he will be able to read smaller
letters that he didn't know were there. The remarkable vision of
savages, who can see with the naked eye objects for which most
civilized persons require a telescope, is a matter of central
fixation. Some people can see the rings of Saturn, or the moons of
Jupiter, with the naked eye. It is not because of any superiority in
the structure of their eyes, but because they have attained a higher
degree of central fixation than most civilized persons do.
Not
only do all errors of refraction and all functional disturbances of
the eye disappear when it sees by central fixation, but many organic
conditions are relieved or cured. I am unable to set any limits to its
possibilities. I would not have ventured to predict that glaucoma,
incipient cataract and syphilitic iritis could be cured by central
fixation; but it is a fact that these conditions have disappeared when
central fixation was attained. Relief was often obtained in a few
minutes, and sometimes this relief was permanent. Usually, however, a
permanent cure required more prolonged treatment. Inflammatory
conditions of all kinds, including inflammation of the cornea, iris,
conjunctiva, the various coats of the eyeball and even the optic nerve
itself, have been benefited by central fixation after other methods
had failed. Infections, as well as diseases caused by protein
poisoning and the poisons of typhoid fever, influenza, syphilis and
gonorrhoea, have also been benefited by it. Even with a foreign body
in the eye there is no redness and no pain so long as central fixation
is retained.
Since central fixation is impossible without mental
control, central fixation of the eye means central fixation of the
mind. It means, therefore, health in all parts of the body, for all
the operations of the physical mechanism depend upon the mind. Not
only the sight, but all the other senses - touch, taste, hearing and
smell - are benefited by central fixation. All the vital processes -
digestion, assimilation, elimination, etc. - are improved by it. The
symptoms of functional and organic diseases are relieved. The
efficiency of the mind is enormously increased. The benefits of
central fixation already observed are, in short, so great that the
subject merits further investigation.
Central fixation example:
Look at the top part of
the letter C. Place it in the center of the visual field. Shift on it
to avoid staring. While looking at that part, in the center of the
visual field; that part is clearest. Other parts of the C away from
the part the eyes are looking directly at are in the peripheral field
are seen worse, less clear.
When the eyes move, shift to a new
part, example; a part on the bottom of the C; this part is now in the
center of the visual field, is clearest and the top of the C and other
parts are in the peripheral field, away from the central field and are
seen less clear.
Shift from part to part on the C and see one
small part at a time clearest in the center of the visual field –
Central Fixation.
Practice on large, then smaller letters, any
objects, then on small objects, a fine print letter.
When the
eyes can shift: small point to small point on a small object, small
part of a object, fine print letter and use central fixation, vision
is very clear.
Central fixation must be combined with shifting;
shifting from point to point.
Central fixation does not mean to
fix the eyes immobile on a point.
Eccentric fixation is –
Diffusion – trying to see two or more objects or more than one part of
a object at the same time, objects in the central and peripheral field
equally clear at the same time. Not shifting from part to part, object
to object. To space the visual attention out to cover the entire field
without moving the eyes. Using the peripheral area of the retina and
field of vision to see with, placing the object of visual attention in
the peripheral field.
A TEACHER'S
EXPERIENCES
A teacher forty years of age was first treated
on March 28, 1919. She was wearing the following glasses: O. D. convex
0.75 D. S. with convex 4.00 D. C., 105 deg.; O. S. convex 0.75 D. S.
with convex 3.50 D. C., 105 deg. On June 9, 1919, she wrote:
I will tell you about my eyes, but first let me tell you other things.
You were the first to unfold your theories to me, and I found them
good immediately - that is, I was favorably impressed from the start.
I did not take up the cure because other people recommended it, but
because I was convinced: first, that you believed in your discovery
yourself; second, that your theory of the cause of eye trouble was
true. I don't know how I knew these two things, but I did. After a
little conversation with you, you and your discovery both seemed to me
to bear the ear-marks of the genuine article. As to the success of the
method with myself I had a little doubt. You might cure others, but
you might not be able to cure me, However, I took the plunge, and it
has made a great change in me and my life.
To begin with, I enjoy
my sight. I love to look at things, to examine them in a leisurely,
thorough way, much as a child examines things. I never realized it at
the time, but it was irksome for me to look at things when I was
wearing glasses, and I did as little of it as possible. The other day,
going down on the Sandy Hook boat, I enjoyed a most wonderful sky
without that hateful barrier, of misted glasses, and I am positive I
distinguished delicate shades of color that I never would have been
able to see, even with clear glasses. Things seem to me now to have
more form, more reality than when I wore glasses. Looking into the
mirror you see a solid representation on a flat surface, and the flat
glass can't show you anything really solid. My eye-glasses, of course,
never gave me this impression, but one curiously like it. I can see so
clearly without them that it is like looking around corners without
changing the position. I feel that I can almost do it.
I very
seldom have occasion to palm.9 Once in a great while I feel the
necessity of it. The same with remembering a period.10 Nothing else is
ever necessary. I seldom think of my eyes, but at times it is borne in
upon me how much I do use and enjoy using them.
My nerves are
much better. I am more equable, have more poise, am less shy. I never
used to show that I was shy, or lacked confidence. I used to go ahead
and do what was required, if not without hesitation, but it was hard.
Now I find it easy. Glasses, or poor sight rather, made me
self-conscious. It certainly is a great defect and one people are
sensitive to without realizing it. I mean the poor sight and the
necessity for wearing glasses. I put on a pair of glasses the other
day just for an experiment, and I found that they magnified things. My
skin looked as if under a magnifying glass. Things seemed too near.
The articles on my chiffonier looked so close I felt like pushing them
away from me. The glasses I especially wanted to push away. They
brought irritation at once. I took them off and felt peaceful. Things
looked normal.
I see better in the street than I ever did with glasses. I can see
what people look like across the street, can distinguish their
features, etc., a thing I could not do with glasses, or before I wore
them. I can see better across the river and further into people's
houses across the street. Not that I indulge, but I noticed an
increase of power while looking out of the window in school.
Speaking of school, I corrected an immense pile of examination papers
the other day, five hours at a stretch, with an occasional look off
the paper and an occasional turn about the room. I felt absolutely no
discomfort after it. Two weeks previous to this feat I handled two
hundred designs over and over again, looking at each one dozens and
dozens of times to note changes and improvement in line and color.
Occasionally, while this work was going on. I had to palm in the
mornings on rising.
I use my eyes with as much success writing,
though once in a while after a lot of steady writing they are a little
bit tired. I can read at night without having to get close to a light.
I mention this because last summer I had to sit immediately under the
light, or I could not see.
From the beginning of the treatment I
could use my eyes pretty well, but they used to tire. I remember
making a large Liberty Loan poster two weeks after I took off my
glasses, and I was amazed to find I could make the whole layout almost
perfectly without a ruler, just as well as with my glasses. When I
came to true it up with the ruler I found only the last row of letters
a bit out of line at the very end. I couldn't have done better with
glasses. However this wasn't fine work. About the same time I sewed a
hem at night in a black dress, using a fine needle. I suffered a
little for this, but not much. I used to practice my exercises at that
time and palm faithfully. Now I don't have to practice, or palm; I
feel no discomfort, and I am absolutely unsparing in my use of my
eyes. I do everything I want to with them. I shirk nothing, pass up no
opportunity of using them. From the first I did all my school work,
read every notice, wrote all that was necessary, neglected nothing.
Everything I was called upon to do I attempted. For instance, I had to
read President Wilson's "Fourteen Points" in the assembly room without
notice in a poor light-unusual wording, too,-and I read it
unhesitatingly. I have yet to fail to make good.
Now to sum up
the school end of it, I used to get headaches at the end of the month
from adding columns of figures necessary to reports, etc. Now I do not
get them. I used to get flustered when people came into my room. Now I
do not; I welcome them. It is a peasant change to feel this way. And-I
suppose this is most important really, though I think of it last-I
teach better. I know how to get at the mind and how to make the
children see things in perspective. I gave a lesson on the horizontal
cylinder recently, which, you know, is not a thrillingly interesting
subject, and it was a remarkable lesson in its results and in the grip
it got on every girl in the room, stupid and bright. What you have
taught me makes me use the memory and imagination more, especially the
latter, in teaching.
Now, to sum up the effect of being cured
upon my own mind. I am more direct, more definite, less diffused, less
vague. In short, I am conscious of being better centered. It is
central fixation of the mind. I saw this in your latest paper, but I
realized it long ago and knew what to call it.
ARMY OFFICER CURES HIMSELF
An engineer, fifty-one years of age, had worn glasses since 1896,
first for astigmatism, getting stronger ones every couple of years,
and then for astigmatism and presbyopia. At one time he asked his
oculist and several opticians if the eyes could not be strengthened by
exercises, so as to make glasses unnecessary, but they said: "No. Once
started on glasses you must keep to them." When the war broke out he
was very nearly disqualified for service in the Expeditionary Forces
by his eyes, but managed to pass the required tests, after which he
was ordered abroad as an officer in the Gas Service. While there he
saw in the Literary Digest of May 2, 1918, a reference to my method of
curing defective eyesight without glasses, and on May 11 he wrote to
me in part as follows:
At the front I found glasses a horrible
nuisance, and they could not be worn with gas masks. After I had been
about six months abroad I asked an officer of the Medical Corps about
going without glasses. He said I was right in my ideas and told me to
try it. The first week was awful, but I persisted and only wore
glasses for reading and writing. I stopped smoking at the same time to
make it easier on my nerves.
I brought to France two pairs of bow
spectacles and two extra lenses for repairs. I have just removed the
extra piece for near vision from these extra lenses and had them
mounted as pince-nez, with shur-on mounts, to use for reading and
writing, so that the only glasses I now use are for astigmatism, the
age lens being off. Three months ago I could not read ordinary
head-line type in newspapers without glasses. Today, with a good
light, I can read ordinary book type (18 point), held at a distance of
eighteen inches from my eyes. Since the first week in February, when I
discarded my glasses, I have had no headaches, stomach trouble, or
dizziness, and am in good health generally. My eyes are coming back,
and I believe it is due to sticking it out. I ride considerably in
automobiles and trams, and somehow the idea has crept into my mind
that after every trip my eyes are stronger. This, I think, is due to
the rapid changing of focus in viewing scenery going by so fast.
Other men have tried this plan on my advice, but gave it up after two
or three days. Yet, from what they say, I believe they were not so
uncomfortable as I was for a week or ten days.
I believe most
people wear glasses because they "coddle" their eyes.
July, 1919 footnotes
1 - Harvard: Manual of Military Hygiene for the Military services of
United States, third revised edition 1917, p. 195.
2 - Report of
the Provost Marshal General to the Secretary of War on the First Draft
under the Selective Service Act, 1917.
3 - Standards of Physical
Examination for the Use of Local Boards, District Boards and Medical
Advisory Boards under the Selective Service Act, Form 75, issued
through office of the Provost Marshal General.
4 - Second Report
of the Provost Marshal General to the Secretary of War on the
Operations of the Selective Service System to December 20, 1918.
5 - Everyman's Library, 1908, pp. 166 and 167.
6 - Bates: The
Cure of Defective Eyesight by Treatment Without Glasses. N. Y. Med.
Jour., May 8, 1915. A Study of Images Reflected from the Cornea, Iris,
Lens and Sclera. N. Y. Med. Jour., May 18, 1918.
7 - Bates: The
Imperfect Sight of the Normal Eye. N. Y. Med. Jour., Sept 8, 1917.
8 – Bates: The Cause of Myopia. N. Y. Med. Jour., March 16, 1912.
9 - By palming is meant the covering of the closed eyes with the palms
of the hands in such a way as to exclude all the light, while
remembering some color, usually black.
10 - Bates: Memory as an
Aid to Vision. N. Y. Med. Jour., May 24, 1919.
Better Eyesight Magazine, Original Antique Vol. 1 - GoogleBooks
Viewer;
Move to the bottom of the page for Translator, Speaker;