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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. - August, 1923 - No. 2
——
Hypermetropia in School Children
——
By W. H. Bates, M.D.
—
Hypermetropia or far-sightedness is more frequent in school children
than is myopia. The statistics average in the lower grades about ten
percent myopia and eighty percent or more of hypermetropia. In higher
grades the percentage of myopia is increased while that of
hypermetropia is decreased.
It has been generally believed for more than one hundred years
that while myopia is usually acquired by school children,
hypermetropia is always present at birth. Many physicians who study
the eyes of school children have had more interest in hygienic methods
of myopia prevention and have recommended better schools, prescribed
the early use of glasses and other measures to lessen the number of
children who become nearsighted after they were at school. The
prevention of hypermetropia was ignored and I have never seen any
article devoted to the prevention of hypermetropia in school
children. In the first place it is very difficult to prove or
disprove the amount of hypermetropia in young children with any degree
of accuracy. I spent many weary hours many years ago when I
prescribed glasses, trying to measure hypermetropia with the eye under
the influence of eye drops. Twenty years ago I first introduced my
method for the prevention of imperfect sight in children and kept
records of the vision of the children from year to year, for eight
years, in one school of about two thousand pupils. In New York City I
have acquired a much larger experience. The symptoms of hypermetropia
were more uncomfortable and interfered much more with the mental
efficiency of the children than did myopia. Most children with myopia
were able to read with comfort and their imperfect sight for distance
is only inconvenient at certain times, but children with hypermetropia
not only have difficulty in seeing near but they also have trouble in
seeing objects at a distance. Some hypermetropes have just as poor
sight as children who have only myopia. Hypermetropia not only
impairs the vision more than does myopia but it is associated often
with a great many more uncomfortable symptoms, pain, headache,
fatigue. In short, hypermetropia interferes seriously with the school
work much more than does myopia. A great many children leave school
because they cannot stand the discomfort of their eyes suffering from
hypermetropia and those who continue their school work suffer in many
ways. They are unable to read without pain and fatigue and the memory
is impaired, they fall behind in their classes and their school life
is a burden. Surely it is more important to study the problems of
hypermetropia than those of myopia.
The condition of the eyes at birth has been a matter of discussion
for many years. Some of the early statistics recorded considerable
myopia, 90%, others found no myopia and the eyes were apparently
normal. It is difficult to draw correct conclusions from most
statistics.
For some years I made it a habit to test the eyes of new born
children a half hour after birth and to examine the eyes again at
regular intervals. Some children's eyes were examined every hour with
the aid of the retinoscope and the eyes under the influence of eye
drops. The characteristic of them was the variability in the amount
of hypermetropia. At certain hours the eyes would be apparently
normal, a half hour later they would be hypermetropic in one or both
eyes, at a later period, mixed astigmatism in one eye, and the other
eye normal or hypermetropic. At a still later period both eyes
normal. A week later both eyes might be normal or both eyes might
have hypermetropia in the morning and be normal in the afternoon.
Usually six months or a year later the eyes became more continuously
normal. At four years of age, six years of age, just before they
began school, the eyes of children were usually normal. After being
in school for a year or more hypermetropia began to be manifest and
increased with each succeeding year. Myopia did not appear to any
great extent before the age of ten or twelve and increased while the
hypermetropia appeared to diminish. I have seen some children ten
years of age with normal eyes, at eleven years with hypermetropia, at
twelve years of age myopia, at thirteen hypermetropia, at fourteen the
eyes apparently normal. The variability of the eyes of young children
is a matter that should be considered very seriously. Those children
who practiced with the Snellen Test Card every day with the help of
teachers, improved. The myopia disappeared, the astigmatism
disappeared, the hypermetropia disappeared and the eyes became
normal. Coincident with the improvement in the sight, teachers
informed me that there was a wonderful gain in the efficiency of the
children. There are teachers in the city of New York still using my
method for the prevention of imperfect sight in children who have
obtained so much benefit from its use that they are continuing to
practice it although they were ordered by the Board of Education more
than ten years ago to stop using my method.
It is a great temptation to put glasses on children for the
correction of hypermetropia. The glasses for the correction of
hypermetropia are magnifying glasses and their effect is to enlarge
the fine print of school books to such a degree as to make it much
easier for the children to read. Children who are under a strain and
have imperfect sight find their vision or their ability to read
improved very much by glasses, much more so than the children who wear
glasses for nearsightedness. There have been many plausible theories
which have encouraged eye physicians to prescribe glasses for many
children who do not manifest a very high degree of hypermetropia. It
is possible to put glasses on children who have normal sight and by
compelling them to wear the glasses continuously they develop
hypermetropia and become able to see with the glasses. In fact there
are very few people with normal sight but who can,—by wearing glasses
continuously, become able to see at the distance with glasses for
correction of hypermetropia, when they do not have it. Just as there
are children who can wear nearsighted glasses and see with them
although their vision may be perfectly good without the glasses.
If a child has headaches and many children do have headaches from
nervousness, from stomach trouble, conditions which often disappear by
simple treatment and rest, I believe it is much better to have the
children rest their eyes when they are in this condition, for a few
days or a week or two because many recover without the need of
glasses. Very few eye specialists realize the facts, and, without
even considering the possibilities that the headaches might come from
something else than the eyes, have prescribed glasses whether the
children needed them or not. I do not believe that any children with
normal eyes, under twelve years of age, ever recover or are benefited
to any great extent by their use. It seems to me very much like a
crime to compel children to wear glasses when their sight for distance
and for near is perfectly good without them. The oculists will tell
you all about latent hypermetropia, which means in the mind of the
physician, that the child is really in need of glasses although the
sight is normal. They believe that the child really has hypermetropia
which is concealed or corrected by a strain of a muscle inside the
eyeball and that it is the strain of this muscle to correct the
hypermetropia which causes the headaches, or the nervousness, or the
stomach troubles or any other disease of the body generally. Some
have gone to an extreme and claim that epilepsy, St. Vitus Dance,
deafness, diseases of the chest, diseases of the liver and many other
diseases are caused by a strain of a muscle inside of the eyeball.
This theory is wrong and the published evidence is conclusive that no
muscle inside the eyeball is a factor in the focussing power of the
eye.
Low degrees of farsightedness are readily curable, but in a great
many cases which have 4, 7, or more degrees of error, the cure is for
most people, or to most eye-specialists, very incredible. One of my
patients had 7 D.S. She could hardly see the large letter on the
Snellen Test Card without her glasses. To read was impossible. After
a few treatments her vision became normal at 20 feet, and she read
diamond type perfectly at less than 10 inches. She wrote me a letter
recently as follows: "My eyes are behaving wonderfully well. At one
time it was impossible to read even with my glasses in a moving
train. To-day I read three columns of the newspaper without any
trouble." Her letters are very legible and written without glasses.
——
Fine Print Pamphlet
——
The announcement in our July issue regarding the little pamphlet of
microscopic print which we were about to bring forth was certainly
received enthusiastically. The requests have come in so numerously
that the initial order is almost exhausted. The benefits derived from
this little booklet cannot be compared to the cost, which we have
fixed at twenty-five cents per copy.
Place your order now, and learn how to read the smallest printing
matter in the world.
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