PRESERVATION OF THE SIGHT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3801, 20 September 1883, Page 4

PRESERVATION OF THE SIGHT.

The editor of the Huntsvillo Democrat, who has passed his threescore years without the use of eye glasses, and can still, with his natural eyes, read fine print, wishes to give othei - people nearing , tiic sore and yellow leaf the benefit of his ocular experience. Therefore, he tells them that in ISGo he found his eyesight failing, indicated by dark .specks flittering over the page and a hazy appearance of the letters when lie was reading. Remembering to have heard his mother say that ex-Presi-dent Quincy Adams (who lived to about eighty years) had preserved his eyesight and read without glasses by pressing the outer and inner corners of his eyes together, the editor tried the experiment. After retiring to his bed at night, he has, ever since the fall of 18G5, before going to sleep, pressed gently together the outer and inner corner of each eye between the thumb and forefinger of the hand corresponding to the right and left eye, applying equal simultaneous pressure to both eyes. Or, using but one hand, he has put the middle finger on his forehead above his nose, and pressed together the corners of one between the thumb and forefinger, and the corners of the other eye between the third and fourth fingers, striving to give equal pressure to both eyes. The philosophy of the above experiment is explained in the following way:—As the people pass the middle age, there is said to be (and we believe it) a tendency of the balls of the eye to lose their convexity—in common parlance, to flatten. Tho habitual pressure of the outer and inner corners of tho eyes together prevents flattoning, and thereby preserves the original normal convexity of the eyes, and thereby tho original power of seeing. Near sighted pei'sons are exceptions to tho rule. Their near-sightedness (as we understand) is caused by too great convexity of the eye. Oftentimes, as they advance in years, their eyes flatten; that is, lose their original convexity, nnd becoino more nearly like the good eyes of young people, and they can sco better without glasses and lay them aside. "Whether our philosophical explanation is right or wrong, this one thing wo know, that whereas wo, over seventeen years ago, were losing our original power of seeing, now, by tho manipulation of our eyes as above explained, we can sco clearly without the use of glasses, and can read small print almost, if not quite, as well as in our youth, while men and women many years our juniors, some of them our near blood relatives, who have not resorted to our mode of preserving tho eyesight, arc compelled to use glasses. Believing it our duty to mankind to do them all the good Aye can, wo overcome our native modesty about writing of ourself by the consideration that we may benefit others by relating our own experience. Tho reason why both eyes should bo subject to the equal simultaneous pressure is that, to see clearly, both eyes should behold objects at the same local distance, and this cannot be if the two eyes have not the same convexity. If the two eyes should see objects at different distances, the objects would present different images on the two retinre of the eyes, and produce a confusion of images, and, of course, impair distinct vision. Instances occur of persons who have a natural infirmity of the eyes with different foci—one eye seeing at one focal distance. In such cases oculists provide eye-glasses of different foci, so accommodated as to correct tho natural defect and make both eyes sec alike. —Huntsville, Ala., Democrat.