The causes and the prevention of blindness / by Ernst Fuchs ; translated by R.E. Dudgeon ; with a few notes by M. Roth.

  • Fuchs, Ernst, 1851-1930.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The causes and the prevention of blindness / by Ernst Fuchs ; translated by R.E. Dudgeon ; with a few notes by M. Roth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    49/280 (page 27)
    hhas long been noticed that there arc many short-sighted persons inn the learned professions. This observation gave the impulse tito the works of COHN and his followers. The best opportunity for observing the influence of occupa- tition is afforded by investigations which have to do with a large nnumbcr of persons irrespective of their position in life, as, for eexample, those made on persons who present themselves for rmilitary service. Seggel* and TsCHERNINGf have recorded in- westigations of this kind. Seggel examined 1,600 soldiers of the Munich garrison. /According as their occupation required less or more close work, hhe divided them into 5 classes : The first included country folks ; dthe second those employed in open-air avocations in towns, such las day-labourers, &c.; the third, handicraftsmen and artisans; the fifourth, tradesmen, merchants, writers, printers, &c.; the fifth, those vwho offered themselves as one-year volunteers, these were chiefly istudents. Myopia in these classes rising from the lowest to the hhighest was : 27,, 47o. 97o. 447o, and 587,. Tscherning's investigations included 7,523 persons liable to military service, who were similarly arranged in 6 classes. In : those classes myopia was found to increase in the following ratio : 27., 57o. 127., I37e, i67.,and 327.. It is evident from these figures that the chief cause of ac- quired myopia lies in the requirements of the occupation. ' Myopia is thus seen to be the melancholy privilege of the learned * Bayer, drztl. Intellegenzblatt, 1878, p. 33. t V. Graefe's Archiv, Bd. XXIX., Abth. i, p. 201.