09-07-2006, 09:37 PM
Dear Imagination-blindness friends,
Here are the recommendations of Dr. Bates in
using your Snellen to clear your distant
vision (to pass the DMV -- and better.)
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
Albert Einstein
CHAPTER XXVII
THE PREVENTION AND CURE OF MYOPIA AND
OTHER ERRORS OF REFRACTION IN SCHOOLS:
A METHOD THAT SUCCEEDED
Dr. W. H. Bates
...Then came a doctor from the Board of Health who tested the
eyes of the children and put glasses on all of them, even those
whose sight was fairly good.
The use of the card was then discontinued, as the teacher did
not consider it proper to interfere while the children were
wearing glasses prescribed by a physician. Very soon, however,
the children began to lose, break, or discard, their glasses.
Some said that the spectacles gave them headaches, or that they
felt better without them. In the course of a month or so most of
the aids to vision which the Board of Health had supplied had
disappeared.
The teacher then felt herself at liberty to resume the use of
the Snellen test card. Its benefits were immediate. The
eye-sight and the mentality of the children improved
simultaneously, and soon they were all drafted into the regular
classes, because it was found that they were making the same
progress in their studies as the other children were.
Another teacher reported an equally interesting experience.
She had a class of children who did not fit into the other grades.
Many of them were backward in their studies. Some were persistent
truants. All of them had defective eyesight. A Snellen test card
was hung in the classroom where all the children could see it, and
the teacher carried out my instructions literally. At the end of
six months all but two had been cured, and these had improved very
much, while the worst incorrigible and the worst truant had become
good students.
The incorrigible, who had previously refused to study,
because, he said it gave him a headache to look at a book, or at
the blackboard, found out that the test card, in some way, did him
a lot of good; and although the teacher had asked him to read it
but once a day, he read it whenever he felt uncomfortable.
The result was that in a few weeks his vision had become
normal and his objection to study had disappeared. The truant had
been in the habit of remaining away from school two or three days
every week, and neither his parents nor the truant officer had
been able to do anything about it. To the great surprise of his
teacher he never missed a day after having begun to read the
Snellen test card.
When she asked for an explanation, he told her that what had
driven him away from school was the pain that came in his eyes
whenever he tried to study, or to read the writing on the
blackboard. After reading the Snellen test card, he said, his
eyes and head were rested and he was able to read without any
discomfort.
To remove any doubts that might arise as to the cause of the
improvement noted in the eyesight of the children, comparative
tests were made with and without cards. In one case six pupils
with defective sight were examined daily for one week without the
use of the test card. No improvement took place. The card was
then restored to its place, and the group was instructed to read
it every day.
At the end of a week all had improved and five were cured.
In the case of another group of defectives the results were
similar. During the week that the card was not used no
improvement was noted; but after a week of exercises in distant
vision with the card all showed marked improvement, and at the end
of a month all were cured. In order that there might be no
question as to the reliability of the records of the teachers some
of the principals asked the Board of Health to send an inspector
to test the vision of the pupils, and whenever this was done the
records were found to be correct.
One day I visited the city of Rochester, and while there I
called on the Superintendent of Public Schools and told him about
my method of preventing myopia. He was very much interested and
invited me to introduce it in one of his schools. I did so, and
at the end of three months a report was sent to me showing that
the vision of all the children had improved, while quite a number
of them had obtained normal vision in both eyes.
The method has been used in a number of other cities and
always with the same result. The vision of all the children
improved, and many of them obtained normal vision in the course of
a few minutes, days, weeks, or months. It is difficult to prove a
negative proposition, but since this system improved the vision of
all the children who used it, it follows that none could have
grown worse. It is therefore obvious that it must have prevented
myopia. This cannot be said of any method of preventing myopia in
schools which had previously been tried. All other methods are
based on the idea that it is the excessive use of the eyes for
near work that causes myopia, and all of them have admittedly
failed.
It is also obvious that the method must have prevented other
errors of refraction, a problem which previously had not even been
seriously considered, because hypermetropia is supposed to be
congenital, and astigmatism was until recently supposed also to be
congenital in the great majority of cases. Anyone who knows how
to use a retinoscope may, however, demonstrate in a few minutes
that both of these conditions are acquired; for no matter how
astigmatic or hypermetropic an eye may be, its vision always
becomes normal when it looks at a blank surface without trying to
see.
It may also be demonstrated that when children are learning
to read, write, draw, sew, or to do anything else that
necessitates their looking at unfamiliar objects at the nearpoint,
hypermetropia, or hypermetropic astigmatism, is always produced.
The same is true of adults. These facts have not been reported
before, so far as I am aware, and they strongly suggest that
children need, first of all, eye education.
Part 2
Here are the recommendations of Dr. Bates in
using your Snellen to clear your distant
vision (to pass the DMV -- and better.)
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
Albert Einstein
CHAPTER XXVII
THE PREVENTION AND CURE OF MYOPIA AND
OTHER ERRORS OF REFRACTION IN SCHOOLS:
A METHOD THAT SUCCEEDED
Dr. W. H. Bates
...Then came a doctor from the Board of Health who tested the
eyes of the children and put glasses on all of them, even those
whose sight was fairly good.
The use of the card was then discontinued, as the teacher did
not consider it proper to interfere while the children were
wearing glasses prescribed by a physician. Very soon, however,
the children began to lose, break, or discard, their glasses.
Some said that the spectacles gave them headaches, or that they
felt better without them. In the course of a month or so most of
the aids to vision which the Board of Health had supplied had
disappeared.
The teacher then felt herself at liberty to resume the use of
the Snellen test card. Its benefits were immediate. The
eye-sight and the mentality of the children improved
simultaneously, and soon they were all drafted into the regular
classes, because it was found that they were making the same
progress in their studies as the other children were.
Another teacher reported an equally interesting experience.
She had a class of children who did not fit into the other grades.
Many of them were backward in their studies. Some were persistent
truants. All of them had defective eyesight. A Snellen test card
was hung in the classroom where all the children could see it, and
the teacher carried out my instructions literally. At the end of
six months all but two had been cured, and these had improved very
much, while the worst incorrigible and the worst truant had become
good students.
The incorrigible, who had previously refused to study,
because, he said it gave him a headache to look at a book, or at
the blackboard, found out that the test card, in some way, did him
a lot of good; and although the teacher had asked him to read it
but once a day, he read it whenever he felt uncomfortable.
The result was that in a few weeks his vision had become
normal and his objection to study had disappeared. The truant had
been in the habit of remaining away from school two or three days
every week, and neither his parents nor the truant officer had
been able to do anything about it. To the great surprise of his
teacher he never missed a day after having begun to read the
Snellen test card.
When she asked for an explanation, he told her that what had
driven him away from school was the pain that came in his eyes
whenever he tried to study, or to read the writing on the
blackboard. After reading the Snellen test card, he said, his
eyes and head were rested and he was able to read without any
discomfort.
To remove any doubts that might arise as to the cause of the
improvement noted in the eyesight of the children, comparative
tests were made with and without cards. In one case six pupils
with defective sight were examined daily for one week without the
use of the test card. No improvement took place. The card was
then restored to its place, and the group was instructed to read
it every day.
At the end of a week all had improved and five were cured.
In the case of another group of defectives the results were
similar. During the week that the card was not used no
improvement was noted; but after a week of exercises in distant
vision with the card all showed marked improvement, and at the end
of a month all were cured. In order that there might be no
question as to the reliability of the records of the teachers some
of the principals asked the Board of Health to send an inspector
to test the vision of the pupils, and whenever this was done the
records were found to be correct.
One day I visited the city of Rochester, and while there I
called on the Superintendent of Public Schools and told him about
my method of preventing myopia. He was very much interested and
invited me to introduce it in one of his schools. I did so, and
at the end of three months a report was sent to me showing that
the vision of all the children had improved, while quite a number
of them had obtained normal vision in both eyes.
The method has been used in a number of other cities and
always with the same result. The vision of all the children
improved, and many of them obtained normal vision in the course of
a few minutes, days, weeks, or months. It is difficult to prove a
negative proposition, but since this system improved the vision of
all the children who used it, it follows that none could have
grown worse. It is therefore obvious that it must have prevented
myopia. This cannot be said of any method of preventing myopia in
schools which had previously been tried. All other methods are
based on the idea that it is the excessive use of the eyes for
near work that causes myopia, and all of them have admittedly
failed.
It is also obvious that the method must have prevented other
errors of refraction, a problem which previously had not even been
seriously considered, because hypermetropia is supposed to be
congenital, and astigmatism was until recently supposed also to be
congenital in the great majority of cases. Anyone who knows how
to use a retinoscope may, however, demonstrate in a few minutes
that both of these conditions are acquired; for no matter how
astigmatic or hypermetropic an eye may be, its vision always
becomes normal when it looks at a blank surface without trying to
see.
It may also be demonstrated that when children are learning
to read, write, draw, sew, or to do anything else that
necessitates their looking at unfamiliar objects at the nearpoint,
hypermetropia, or hypermetropic astigmatism, is always produced.
The same is true of adults. These facts have not been reported
before, so far as I am aware, and they strongly suggest that
children need, first of all, eye education.
Part 2
