SHORT SIGHT INCREASING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 10, 10 January 1913, Page 6

SHORT SIGHT INCREASING.

OVERSTRAIN OR CRA-Ai FED SCOPE OF VISION IN CITY LIFE Short sight, especially among child ren, is on the .-increase in the larg cities. One of the most eminent ocu lists in the country declares that o all afflictions of the eye short sigh l is most common, and that during the last few years it has increased to ; rapid and alarming extent. “We are overworking and over straining the eyes of our young children,” he said.

“We expect from the sapling th same strength as we got from th tree. Children five years old and eve

younger are taught to read and to per form other tasks trying to the eye with the result of eyes strained out o shape and defective vision.” Asked why city dwellers suffered more from short-sightedness thai dwellers in the country, the oculist re plied that probably the more sedent ary life of the city dweller would in crease the liability of defective vision No Distant-seeing Practice.

More novel and ingenious was ththeory of a London optician. '‘The rea son why so many city people are short sighted is that they have not suffi cient space in which to exercise the; eyes. Their scope of vision is cramp ed. The city man is not called on tvisualise objects more than a fev hundred yards away, and in time hi eyes lose their power, just as muscle loso their strength for lack of prac tico.

“You will rarely see a short-sighted sailor or agricultural labourer. Thei eyes become trained to distances. l.i my opinion defective vision in tin children of city parents is due as mud to heredity as it is to early school work.”

A famous opthalmic surgeon admit ted that there might he something ii the optician’s theory, but he did noi think it would account for the larg' increase within the last ten years of short sight among city people. H' hold that defective vision was caused rather by overstrain than by lack of visual space.