Myopia (commonly called near-sightedness,) in its various phases / by Julian J. Chisholm.

  • Chisolm, Julian John, 1830-1903.
Date:
[1880]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Myopia (commonly called near-sightedness,) in its various phases / by Julian J. Chisholm. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    7/34 (page 5)
    average of city and country schools among the pupils six years of age, meaning those in the primary classes, as marking the near-sighted children by inheritance, and 50 per cent, as the average of the graduating classes in the highest schools, we have 45 per cent, as indicating the acquired cases of near-sightedness. This number of near-sighted or weak-eyed persons is being con- tinually added to the intellectual and learned population of the civilized globe. From these figures it would really appear as if our higher edu- cation was threatening the ruin of the eye-sight of our race. The observant citizen sees many more young persons using spectacles now than formerly, and hears constant complaints of defective eyes among his young friends, apparently out of all proportion to his former experience. That eye diseases are on the increase there can be no question, and our school system has been justly charged with the growing trouble. The eye, like any other very delicate instrument, is capable of abuse, particularly during its growing period. Although it may attain its full size at 12 or 14 years of age, its protecting walls do not secure firmness and the full powers of resistance until the maturity of the rest of the body. Up to twenty years of age, the eye is liable to injury from over-work, and this is more especially the case between the school years of 6 and 16. In studying the anatomy and physiology of the eye, we find a ready explanation for those organic changes which are brought about in myopia. At the commencement of school life—say from 6 to 8 years—we find the eye-ball a hollow organ, filled with fluid, with comparatively thin, soft walls, and very richly supplied with blood-vessels. It has already nearly attained its full growth as to size and the development of its intricate con- tents ; but its outer sclerotic wall, which is to fix the shape of the organ, is not as thick, dense, tough and resisting as it will be when the body attains maturity. At this stage of bodily devel- opment the lens within the eye of the child is well formed, and is of so elastic a nature, from the juiciness of its fibres, that it can readily change its shape and approach the globular form when .strongly acted upon by the accommodating muscle. This in-