What "drove" me to do my research was the feeling that Dr. Bates had conducted a study -- and, not only the results ignored, but THE STUDY WAS PREVENTED BEFORE IT HAD A CHANCE TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL.
I had a hard time finding this again, because it was about teachers in control of the study:
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There are people who will attack me because I advocate CHANGE. But that is not quite correct. I advocate that this type of study be conducted, not with children, but with mature adults who can make the commitment that prevention requires -- by ANY METHOD.
I wonder if you would support a study like this MONITORED (but not controlled) by the National Eye Institute.
My mind is all in this latelly, I am so happy I found this post. I was also thinking this kind of research could be done, I would like to see the change of adding a few preventative advices by optometrists.
And I am aslo apologasing to everyone that finds him/her-self attacked, it is not my intention.
Have an example, with the spine and bad posture, before we do any treatment on spine we teach children to have right body posture and execrcise. Or there may be more examples, the dentists still teach us to prevent illness by washing the theeth regularly and fix before it's too much damage, or to massage the gums to prevent paradontosis.
This is about people and helping them in their pain. Many illnesses are becoming due to wrong usage of the body, why not admit it with the eyes as well. Adding just a few simple advices to the eye examination about how eye works and what to avoid, we all know now what are common mistakes...
yes, I would like to participate in such research.
I even came to idea - I saw a new camera for the eye at my optometrist - can this camera be used to prove dr Bates' findings. Like speed of the saccadic eye movement and the length of such eye shifting, the central or excentric fixation, the axe of the eye: crossed or paralel, and the accomodation the elongation and shortening of the eye ball.
I would like to know if some institution is doing this and would like to help whether as a research team part or patient voluntier.
Just to add, i AM a bit too emotional about this, the idea of putting people in glasses when is not neccessary and not so healthy makes me very sad, with strog strees on children's vision. They are still just learning to see, some are quicker some slower, but I would like these professionals to teach them basics of seeing.
That doesn't mean there wouldn't be a people who would like to wear glasses out of fashion, or it's easier for them then doing some freeking exercises...
If you have any directions where this is happening I am in, please pass the information. I feel like this is why I came here at the first place.
I am sorry to tell you this -- but the reaction of the pubic is largly hostil to any OD or MD who "steps out of line".
About 50 years ago, Floride was introduced to avoid cavities in teeth. The public thought it was a communist plot -- and would not brush their teeth with it. It took about 30 years to finally get it "accepted".
It takes an "education" to begin to UNDERSTAND and USE these Bates/Prentice preventive measures.
Quote:Have an example, with the spine and bad posture, before we do any treatment on spine we teach children to have right body posture and execrcise. Or there may be more examples, the dentists still teach us to prevent illness by washing the theeth regularly and fix before it's too much damage, or to massage the gums to prevent paradontosis
It is easy to state the problem. But is it almost impossible to get the public to actually use these Bates/Prentice preventive methods.
Bates tried to get them introduced, and eventually got kicked out of a teaching "position" at a medical shool. He was not asked to resign. He was FIRED.
This is how medical people are treated if they object to "standard practice".
Another exmple is that "loud noise" creates deafness. How can that be?
I was not "short term" noise that did it. It was "jet noise" for years that did it. But it took amost 30 years to "wake up" to that fact.
The solution, (ear plugs) cost amost nothing, and could not "cure" defness -- only PREVENT it.
Even then, the aircraft mechanics would refust to wear the ear muffs.
No, 50 years later, the use of preventive methods to prevent deafness is almost universal.
So, yes, I advocate preventive methods -- to be used like in Bates 1913 study -- but that the person recongize that he is successful UNDER HIS CONTROL AND BY HIS MEASUREMENTS -- while his OWN STUDY IS IN PROGRESS.
I think with the "right people" (and with the RIGHT MDs) it would be possible.
But the National Eye Institute will not allow it, let alone support it.
I am an engineer -- so naturally they will not "listen".
Otis, my friend, I am sorry I have to rise this issue again. I just didn't have time to respond sooner, but I am having thousand of thoughts on this topic.
Thank you for sharing these examples, I am using it in my discussions wherever I go, it's good to make a corelation with other fightings against wrong beliefs.
I would say we - I mean everyone beleivign in Natural Vision and Dr. Bates research, us as patients, real examples, then all porffessionals, doctors that stepped out, all vision teachers, and practitioners, - should be talking more publicly, maybe doign some free presentations in libraries, in mind-body exibitions, schools, univarsities, on TV, bring some group of people as examples.
Or really, as it was already mentioned on this forum, make a movie, Dr Bates and NVI. I don't know, I think Dustin Hoffman would be good for this role.
Or, write letters, start a petitions to health ministers or other people of influence (I read this idea and it matched with my own feelings in Roberto Kaplan's book)
So, at least is made wide spread and available as option of prevention to general public. There is no risks in Baets' methoods: swing:hift::tenis::palming::nostrain::younameit:: 8)
And with this teaching I am having an idea, what I would liek to have: DROP-IN-DAILY-CLINIC.
have some charts there and people willing to help. Be in a group of people doing excercises or just have a chat in a corner.
For kids I am sure will help to see other kids doing some string or trampoline....
Make it live and realistic, promote ideas of central fixation and other GOOD VISION HABITS.
I mean all the sites, and genreal recomendations done by all these good and beatuful people, all for free, but works for people like us, at the point easy to beleive. Most of my friends in glasses still think this is psychic magic...
I started sending them regularly some short emails with quotes from Dr bates book, maybe someone will wake up and at least pass the knowledge to kids...
All the best for now!
I feel so free and happy without glasses (I am 6/15 to 6/18 now)and in balance.
It's misleading to be posting this 1913 article by Bates without qualifying it with a contextual explanation of Bates's opening sentence:
Quote:Myopia with elongation of the eyeball is incurable.
The above sentence is why I removed it years ago from the articles I have posted on http://www.iblindness.org/articles. Maybe I should have left it up, and in its entirely, but with a comment inserted. Bates's methods and beliefs were still in development in 1913, and it looks like he pretty much deferred to the conventional theories at the time while trying to find a way to work in what he had learned, rationalizing it as "pseudo-myopia" that his methods had been reversing, not true myopia. Soon afterward, he conducted more experiments. From a 1921 article:
Quote:Instead of being explained away and ignored, it seemed to me that such facts ought to be investigated. On seeking fight upon them, I examined an incredible number of eyes. In the course of time, I learned by the aid of simultaneous retinoscopy that not only astigmatism but any error of refraction could be produced at will. I also discovered that myopia is not, as we have so long believed, associated with the use of the eyes at the near-point but with a strain to see distant objects, while strain at the near-point produces hypermetropia. I became able, too, to cure the lower degrees of refractive error and to improve the higher ones. Out of deference to the teachings of the authorities, however, I continued for a long time to differentiate between functional myopia, which I was able to cure, and organic myopia, which I believed to be incurable. At late as 1912, in an address before the New York County Medical Society, I made this distinction.
Soon afterward, however, I learned, again by the aid of simultaneous retinoscopy, using the instrument at a distance of six feet or further, that no error of refraction was ever permanent, for, under certain conditions, the highest degrees of these errors would temporarily disappear. By this time, I had come to the conclusion that the whole problem of accommodation and errors of refraction needed to be reinvestigated. For the purpose of obtaining more light upon it, I undertook, about seven years ago, a series of experiments upon the eye muscles of fish, rabbits, cats and dogs, full details of which may be found in'the New York Medical journal for May 8, 1915. In these experiments, I was able, by manipulation of the external eye muscles, to produce and prevent accommodation and errors of refraction at will.
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I hope that clears it up.
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
hift::tenis::palming::nostrain::younameit:: 8) 
