TALKING ABOUT EYES.

Shannon News, 14 March 1922, Page 3

TALKING ABOUT EYES.

A CHAT WITH MR RUSSELL.

(From the Feilding Star.)

That our eves are of prime importance nobody can deny. And yet we actually and really pay less attention to- the care of the eyes and the preservation of our sight than w r e do to our teeth—and both are of equal importance. Without teeth we should certainly suffer from indigestion. But without sight where would v.e be? ■ Lost—literally lost. We might grumble about stomachic troubles as the result of being toothless, but we would stumble all over the place an o put our lives in jeopardy every hour of the day if our eyes gave out. That is a Tact which nobody can deny. Tot what a multitude of people up mid down and across the land are stumbling along in a state Of semi-blind-ness because "of, astigmatism which could so easily be rectified by an oculist such as Mr W. W. Russell, ol the Palmerstorr firm of Russell and Junes, whose consulting rooms are in Rangitikei Street.

Feilding and other folks along this coast do not know about Mr Russell as they'Should. The Star man set out to interview him in the ordinary set and conventional method. But the pressman found the oculist, so chatty that he forgot all about his pencil • and notebook, and the foregathering resolved itself into a talk in which the layman sat at the feet, as it were, of the expert. Nor did Mr Bussell explode in a series of highsounding' technical phrases. Not at all. He just expounded the gospelof the foolishness of .the short-sight-edness’of parents who neglect having the sight of their children examined and the defects corrected by an expert whilst yet the revision can be of life-service to the child. ' And there are the equally foolish grown-ups who go on screwing up their eyes into Ihe wrinkles, plainly advertising the growing weakness of their eyesight. All for the sake of a little trouble in visiting the oculist and getting a pair of glasses that would once more make reading and walking out a pleasure. There was 'a little digression whilst the expert took a short time off to animadvert against the practice at our public * schools of allowing a general practitioner, and not an oculist, to make a cursory examination of a child and give the boy or the girl a “clean” card regarding eyesight simply because the child answers the set general rule that is so hurriedly run over the scholars under the health examination. Far better, says Mr Russell, to cut out the eyetest, which Is more serious than *■ farce. By means of this generalisation the boy or girl may go on indefinitely with a defect of the eye that is absolutely unnoticed simply because of that generalised health examination. Does the. child -keep on complaining to the parent that there is something about his or her eyes that causes a headache or strainthen the parent, thrown off the rails by the casual and all-one-pattern course of the school doctor’s report, says: “Tut-tut! There’s nothing the matter with your eyes. Didn’t the school doctor’s card say your eyes were all right?”

Mr Ru'sself is something more

than an oculist. He is even more

j than a philosopher—though he has j that rare quality. He is an investi- ; gator—a student of nature—an ori- , ginal in research. Feilding folk may

| not have heard his name mentioned i in connection with that very interestj ing Palmerston enterprise, the New’ ' Zealand Oil and Acid Extraction Co., 1 but Mr Russell is the man behind I that invention. He thought it all I out, lie want into the bush l'or some

time, and conducted his experiments i on the' spot, he found out. for himself ‘ just what kind of wealth was to be | extracted from some of the waste i products of • our wonderful bush. Is iit any wonder, therefore, that ihis , interviewer went to take notes and

i stayed.to learn things about eyes and I other Important things' jn the carry- ! ing out of the daily rounds and comj mon tasks of humans? j Of course, all this is not held out j as an inducement to the crowds that : really need a thorough and practical

I testing of their eyes to go around [ and talk philosophies and research- • ings to Mr Russell. He is a very

J busy man, and he has to hustle in t and out of office hours. But lie is eminently practical, and a talk with ! him does notn always -mean a pair of glasses. lie really can give you the < scientific overhauling of your eyes ( which you need to save yon from i anxiety., from needless strain and ; pain, and from losing in time that ( most precious of gifts put within the j power of humans to use or to abuse

; —their eyesight. Parents in doubt concerning the condition of the' eyes ! of their children, husband's who think j their better halves are straining their I sight over needlework, and waves who ! have observed the little signs that inI dieate eyestrain on the part of their !’husbands—one and all should' consuit Mr Russell, a qualified and experienced profe'ssor and practitioner of

optometry. Where the eyes are concerned, take the business man’s advice—Do It Nowl