Henry

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Better Eyesight
A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Prevention and Cure of Imperfect
Sight Without Glasses
Copyright, 1921, by the Central Fixation Publishing Company
Editor, W. H. Bates, M. D.
Publisher, Central Fixation Publishing Company
Vol. VIII. - July, 1923 - No. 1

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Henry
——
By W. H. Bates, M.D.
—
Henry first visited me in New York about five years ago. At that
time he was attending school in Connecticut. The boy was naturally of
a friendly disposition. He had many friends, I do not know that he had
any enemies. He always treated me with the greatest respect. I became
very fond of him, and I believe he was equally fond of me. He had one
virtue, which is not always found in New England or elsewhere: he
asked no questions and required no explanations of anything that I
might ask him to do. With him it was largely a business to be cured
without glasses, and he left the solution of it entirely to me.
At his first visit his vision was less than one-half of the
normal. He was wearing concave 1.50 DS, combined with concave 0.25 DC
180 deg. I told him that he was curable and demonstrated the fact by
curing him temporarily, improving his sight to 15/10 with the aid of
palming, shifting and swinging. He demonstrated that staring at one
letter very soon lowered his vision, and that by shifting from one
letter to another his vision improved. I asked him if he felt any
different when his sight was good and when it was imperfect. He
answered, "I know by the feeling in my mind, not my eyes, when I am
straining and making my sight poor." This was an interesting statement
and is remarkable in this way that he was the first patient I ever had
who could realize that his myopia was due to a mental strain
primarily. The mental strain produced the eye strain. I asked him if
he could remember mental pictures. He said that he could at times with
benefit to his sight, but for some reason or other his memory was poor
when he had imperfect sight. He demonstrated that when he remembered
some letter or some object perfectly he did it quickly, easily and
without any effort; but when he strained and tried hard to remember
any mental picture he always failed. Furthermore, when he did remember
the mental picture he always lost it when he strained or made any
effort to remember it better. I spent a good deal of time with him all
through his treatment in "Rubbing it in," as I called it. First he
demonstrated that his vision was improved and became temporarily
normal by resting, by not doing anything. Then, to see imperfectly, he
had to strain, to work hard, and go to a lot of trouble. He was a very
thoughtful person with a good deal of common sense and became able to
profit from his experience.
To me his problem was not learning how to do things with his eyes,
but to find out in some way how he could avoid doing anything. He
repeatedly demonstrated that when his sight was normal he did not do
anything, that anything he did was always wrong or always lowered his
vision. He was very fond of shifting because by continually moving his
eyes from one point to another, alternately closing his eyes
frequently, required the ability to avoid the strain at first
occasionally, later more frequently, until he became able to finally
avoid the strain continuously. Many of my patients are cured by
practicing one of the truths of normal sight and he was one of them.
The normal eye does not stare as long as it has normal sight; it is
continually shifting to avoid the stare. He learned how to do this for
a while, and then his mind would wander, and before he knew it he was
staring and producing imperfect sight. He knew the proper thing to do
and knew how to do it, but he often failed and lost his mental
control. I said to him one time, "You have a bad habit of straining,
you would be better off if you didn't have that habit." One way of
getting rid of a bad habit is to acquire a beneficial habit. When you
strain it makes you uncomfortable. When you shift and avoid the strain
you are comfortable. Surely you should not hesitate to make the right
choice. Keep shifting, enjoy yourself and be comfortable. Keep that in
your mind a good deal of the time and as long as you are perfectly
comfortable you know that you are not straining because the straining
always makes you uncomfortable. As long as things are going all right
and you are doing the right thing, then you do not need to ask
yourself questions about shifting and palming and swinging, you are
doing these things when you are perfectly comfortable.
Here was a boy who, like many boys, had his faults, but somehow or
other they were not conspicuous. All his friends spoke well of him,
and he had many. His best friend, the one who knew him the longest,
was his father. Unfortunately his father was a very busy man, who
believed that he was doing the right thing by attending to his work
and looking after his business affairs. Someone has said that the
principal business of the world is children. If it were not for the
children, no country would have a future. I believe this is a true
statement and I believe it to the extent that I feel the principal
duty of every man, of every woman, is the business of looking after
the children. Of what use is it to accumulate many dollars when your
child goes around half blind wearing glasses? He is uncomfortable and
not happy because of those glasses. I shall always criticize Henry's
father. I do not believe I can criticize him too severely because he
did not realize, and I could not make him realize, that for the best
interests of his son that he should cure his own eyes for the benefit
it would be to Henry. There wasn't very much the matter with his eyes,
he could see perfectly at the distance without glasses, he only wore
them occasionally when he had to read. Henry could have cured him of
that. The father wearing glasses disturbed the mind of the son, and I
have found during all these years that one of the greatest
difficulties in curing children is to counteract the evil influence of
the parents wearing glasses. Nearsightedness is contagious. Children
are great imitators, and they consciously or unconsciously imitate the
habits of their parents, even to the smallest detail. I have talked
until I was all talked out trying to explain this fact to the parents
of children who were wearing glasses. I have tested the sight of many
thousands of children in public schools, and was very much impressed
to find that in those classes presided over by teachers wearing
glasses the percentage of imperfect sight in the pupils was very much
increased, while in those classes where teachers did not wear glasses
imperfect sight was less frequent.
Now, Henry was an easy case to cure, as I said in the beginning;
he obtained temporary perfect sight at the first visit. But why didn't
he hold it; why did he have so much trouble in obtaining permanent
benefit? The answer is that his father was at fault.
Henry enlisted and passed the eye tests without any difficulty.
After the war was over Henry called to see me. Of course, my first
question was, "How is your sight?" His laconic answer was, "Good."
As he had not been to see me in a long time, some years, I was
more or less doubtful about his vision and tested him with a card that
he had never seen before. I remember how he stood backed up against
the opposite wall in order to get as far away as possible, and the
speed with which he read the whole card with normal sight.
"How did you do it?" I asked.
He replied: "Shifting."
Some years later my attention was called to an article in a
popular magazine which attacked my method of curing imperfect sight by
treatment without glasses. In the next issue of the magazine appeared
an article defending me, and signed with the initials of my dear
friend, Henry.

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