CINEMA BLINDNESS

Hokitika Guardian, 17 February 1927, Page 4

CINEMA BLINDNESS

(By A PHYSICIAN in the London “ Daily Mail ”.) The sudden blindness of Anton Doiin, the ballet dancer, as the result of being filmed under powerful lights, is another of a series of cases that form part of cinema, history. The sudden onset of blindness, due to exposure to bright lights, is quite familiar to eye specialists. It is caused b v facing bright sunlight, continuous work in the glaring light of furnaces, or the powerful are lamps of electricians. During eclipses of the sun many people have experienced temporary impairment of vision as a result of gazing at the sun with unprotected eyes. Snow blindness, prevalent in Russia and familiar to Arctic explorers, is akin to this condition, hilt it Is usually slower in onset than the other forms of deprivation of sight by light. In some way the bodily condition of an exposed person plays a part in determining whether blindness will lie produced. A medical man imprisoned in Siberia during llie war had under his observation many cases of light blindness, and he noted that the majority of these were found among persons with symptoms of scurvy. Although exposure of the eyes to powerful light may produce total blindness, a more common result is ail acute form of that curious condition called

“ night blindness.’’ Persons suffering from this affection may see quite well in daylight, and it is not until the coining of darkness that their sight limitations make themselves apparent. In the dusk small objects, easily seen by a normal person, cannot he discerned. and at night they are totallv blind.

Right blindness is produced by the over-excitation of the ret inn, the little sight screen at the hack of the eye. There is some reason to suppose that lights rich in ultra-violet rays—c.g., eleetrii light and the reflected sunlight in high mountainous regions-—are particularly liable to cause an attack.

I'<»rLitll:< t*-l.v tlir* blindness so produr>'d is not permanent, ami a few days’ rest in n darkened room will restore to the retina its former sensitiveness and to the patient his sight.