William Horatio Bates

“ The author affirmed, as the readers of this magazine already know, that errors of refraction—myopia, hypermetropia, and astigmatism—so far from being permanent conditions due to deformities of the eyeball, congenital or acquired, and only to be corrected by glasses, are caused by a vicious contraction of the outside muscles of the ocular globe and may be cured by treatment leading to the relaxation of these muscles: In a word the eyeball is not inextensible, and the lens is not a factor in accommodation. ”

“ If, in a kodak, one were to imitate that which, according to the accepted theory, occurs in the eye, it would be necessary to put in a new lens every time one desired to change the focus, since there is no known device that can modify the power of a lens. Leaving the accepted theories out of consideration for the moment, it seemed to me more logical to conceive of accommodation as Bates described it than as it had appeared to Helmholtz. ”

“ Truth must conquer in the end, removing the mountains of error and prejudice.
THE STORY OF SYLVIA By Victoria Coolidge
Sylvia is a little girl, ten years old, in the fourth grade in school. She has a good brain and is an energetic worker, but until she learned to see with central fixation, she was handicapped by defective eyesight. According to her physical record card, her vision in September, 1919, was 20/40 in each eye. On November 4, 1919, I tested her eyes and found that 20/40 was the best that she could see with either eye at that time. ”

“ There will not be lacking dispassionate and impartial minds to verify and propagate it. The number of the cured, constantly increasing, will become at last like a tidal wave, overwhelming all opposition. ”

“ Persons who can read perfectly fine print, like the above specimen, are relieved of pain and fatigue while they are doing it, and this relief is often permanent. Persons who cannot read it are benefited by observing its blackness, and remembering it with the eyes open and closed alternately. By bringing the print so near to the eyes that it cannot be read pain is sometimes relieved instantly, because when the patient realizes that there is no possibility of reading it the eyes do not try to do so. ”

“ Today he not only works all day without inconvenience, but even works overtime, with great economic advantage to himself.
Another case was that of a lady, a lawyer, who had been told that the sight of one eye was almost lost, and who could practically do no continuous work without severe headaches. She wore a pair of large dark-tinted lenses constantly, in order to protect her eyes from the tropical sunlight, and these were so disfiguring that they made her very conspicuous and, naturally, caused her much annoyance. ”

“ When one of these seven fundamentals is perfect, all are perfect.
It is impossible to read fine print without relaxing. Therefore the reading of such print, contrary to what is generally believed, is a great benefit to the eyes. ”

“ It is they, above all, who will publish the glad tidings they and the school children under twelve, who having, as a rule, not accustomed their eyes to glasses, and being free from the misconceptions that handicap older patients, respond with incredible rapidity to the new methods— methods as simple as they are effective, and both preventative and curative of visual defects. ”

“ But the patients who never find a pair of lenses satisfactory, and who pass half their lives in the optician's office, who suffer from troublesome ailments of various kinds resulting from their eye troubles ”

“ It required only a few treatments by means of rest, practice with the Snellen test card, and the cultivation of the memory of a black period with the eyes alternately closed and open (glasses having, of course, been discarded) , to convince me of the truth of this diagnosis, and naturally, of its logical basis. By a continuation of the same treatment my headaches were soon cured, and after many months of practice my lost power of central fixation was restored and I regained the normal vision I have since enjoyed. ”

“ Overcome by the evidence of my case, they only await a period of leisure in order to take the treatment, in which they believe, but which they erroneously suppose to demand effort and time. They find their problems solved temporarily by glasses and continue to wear them. ”

“ When the patient becomes able to increase the vividness of these appearances (see Halos, February number) the sight always improves.
MY HEADACHES By R. Ruiz Arnau, M.D.
From my childhood until about three years ago—I am now forty-six—I suffered from headaches, periods of intense supraorbital pain lasting from twenty-four to thirty-six hours, unless relieved by repeated doses of some derivative of antipyrin. A notable feature of these attacks was their regularity ”