The refraction of the human eye : a critical study of the statistics obtained by examinations of the refraction, especially among school children / by B. Alex. Randall.

  • Randall, Burton Alexander, 1858-1932.
Date:
[1885]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The refraction of the human eye : a critical study of the statistics obtained by examinations of the refraction, especially among school children / by B. Alex. Randall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    Extracted fi'om the American Journal of the Medical Sciences for July, 1885. THE REFRACTION OF THE HUMAN EYE. A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE STATISTICS OBTAINED BY EXAMINA- TIONS OF THE REFRACTION, ESPECIALLY AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN. By B. ALEX. RANDALL, A.M., M.D., Ophthalmic and Aural Surgeon to the Episcopal and the Children's Hospitals, Philadelphia. The great importance of full sharpness of vision is a matter which is steadily obtaining wider-spread recognition, and is demanding still more earnest consideration of all thinking persons. Defective sight is growing more notable for a variety of reasons, and the means of amending it are progressively improving and are more widely employed, thus furnishing con- stant reminders of the need of such help ; yet they are making only the more distinct those classes of cases which are but partially, if at all, remediable, and driving us to the more thorough study of the causes of these defects and the means for their prevention. The progress which has been made in all branches of knowledge, especially the natural sciences, is constantly increasing the field to be covered in the usual educational process. The demands made upon children at their lessons have steadily increased; while the assumption of the matter of education by the state, as a duty owing to itself and its citizens, has carried the influence of the schools, sometimes by compulsion, into every rank of life. Conditions, therefore, whic|i not long since invested only the few, are now the environment of the community. Census reports point to a steady and rapid decrease, in every country making claim to civilization, of that portion of its inhabitants unable to read and write; while means and attractions to the exercise of these powers are offered by veritable floods of literary productions and reproductions, by postal facilities which would have been deemed a few decades since utterly beyond belief, and by an immense broadening, for almost every one, difathe field of eveiy-day interest. Some information on almost all points i^expected of every one; and the most abstruse dis-