418 OPHTHALMOLOGY 



glaucoma, and of the negro to phlyctenular disease, and the com- 

 parative freedom of the latter from trachoma, lachrymal obstruction, 

 and strabismus, are instances of a long list of ophthalmic facts that 

 will help to reveal laws of congenital variation and heredity. 



Education. From the field of ophthalmology we can bring sug- 

 gestions of radical importance as to methods of primary education. 

 The educative treatment of squint is truly an educational process; 

 and of the simplest and most definite kind. How development of 

 power and skill goes on under it may well claim the attention of the 

 philosophic teacher. 



In congenital word blindness, to which attention has been directed 

 of late years by Hinshelwood and Nettleship, we have a suggestion 

 of the obstacles that may lie in the way of the ordinary training of 

 children. A bright, exceptionally successful teacher told me she had 

 devoted three months to the attempt to teach an apparently bright 

 and active boy of over six years the names of the first three letters 

 of the alphabet, and had failed in that time to fix either of them in 

 his memory. I have encountered two of these cases of inability to 

 name the letters seen, although the alphabet could be repeated for- 

 ward or backward by rote. In both of these cases, as in most of the 

 other reported cases, this disability subsequently disappeared. Evi- 

 dently there is a time to teach the alphabet and a time not to teach 

 it. In these cases the times varied widely from the normal standard. 

 How many other mental capacities are there the development of 

 which may be exceptionally early or long delayed? How often is the 

 usual order of development reversed? The complexity of the rela- 

 tively simple act of vision, its inability to render a certain service 

 because of the retarded or imperfect development of a subsidiary 

 power, should be enormously suggestive to the student of pedagogy. 



The ophthalmic history of our schools enforces a lesson that needs 

 to be remembered in every application of educational science. By the 

 training given to and through an organ, and intended to perfect its 

 powers, it is possible to render it functionally worthless. The con- 

 nection of myopia with the educational process of a certain kind is 

 as well established as the connection of choroidal atrophy, retinal 

 detachment, and cataract with myopia. Then, too, the curriculum 

 and conditions of study which leave the eyes of one scholar un- 

 harmed ruin the eyes of others. Will not the analogy between eye 

 and brain carry over the ophthalmic observation as another im- 

 portant suggestion to those who study the theory of education, and 

 work out the educational schemes to which young persons are sub- 

 jected? 



Preventive Medicine and Public Health. It requires no stretch 

 of imagination to apply the observed facts regarding the deterio- 

 ration of the eyes during school-life to the service of preventive 



