EYES AND SCHOOL-BOOKS. 55 



Myopy is seldom congenital. All experts remark that it is rarely 

 found in children of less than five years of age. All agree likewise 

 that it arises from a too steady application of the eyes to close objects, 

 especially during the school age. The attention of the authorities in 

 Baden was directed to this fact forty years ago, by the number of 

 students in the gymnasia who wore spectacles. Their inquiries were 

 followed up by Dr. Szokalsky in Paris. Professor C von Jager, of 

 Vienna, in 1861, was the first person who made a systematic examina- 

 tion of the eyes of children in reference to this point. Out of two 

 hundred children, he found fifty-five per cent, of those in an orphan 

 house, and eighty per cent, of the pupils in a private school, to be 

 short-sighted. He did not, however, consider his investigation ex- 

 tended enough to justify his drawing a general conclusion. 



I began in 1865 to examine the school-children of my native city, 

 and believed, after I had gone through thirty-three schools of all 

 grades, up to the gymnasium, containing 10,060 children, that I was 

 justified in announcing the three following laws : 1. Short-sightedness 

 hardly exists in the village schools the number of cases increases 

 steadily with the increasing demands which the schools make upon the 

 eyes, and reaches the highest point in the gymnasia ; 2. The number 

 of short-sighted scholars rises regularly from the lowest to the highest 

 classes in all institutions ; 3. The average degree of myopy increases 

 from class to class that is, the short-sighted become more so. 



My investigations have been repeated in many cities of Europe 

 and America, and my conclusions have been everywhere confirmed. 

 I may cite the examinations of Dr. Thilenius at Rostock in 1868 ; of 

 Dr. Schultz at Upsala in 1870 ; of Dr. Crismann at St. Petersburg, and 

 Dr. Maklakoff at Moscow, in 1871 ; of Dr. Kriiger at Frankfort, and 

 Herr von Hoffmann at Wiesbaden, in 1873 ; of Dr. A. von Reuss in 

 Vienna, Dr. Ott and Dr. Ritzmann in Shaffhausen, Dr. Burgl in Mu- 

 nich, and Professor Dor in Bern, in 1874 ; of Dr. Conrad in Konigs- 

 berg in 1875, of Dr. Scheiding in Erlangen, Dr. Koppe in Dorpat, 

 Professor Pfltiger in Lucerne, and Drs. Loring and Derby in K^ew 

 York, in 1876 ; of Dr. Emmert in Bern, Drs. Kotelmann and Classen 

 in Hamburg, Professor Becker in Heidelberg, Drs. William, Agnew, 

 and Derby, in Cincinnati, New York, and Boston, in 1877 ; Dr. Nie- 

 mann in Magdeburg, Dr. Seggle in Munich, Professor Dor in Lyons, 

 Dr. Haenel in Dresden, and Dr. Reich in Tiflis, in 1878 ; Dr. Just in 

 Zittau, and Dr. Florschutz in Coburg, in 1879. We have in all more 

 than thirty accurate reports of competent oculists, giving the results 

 of the most careful investigations among more than forty thousand 

 scholars. 



The final results of all these observations, when combined, show , 

 that in the village schools hardly one per cent., in the elementary 

 schools five to eleven per cent., in the girls' schools ten to twenty-four 

 per cent., in the real schools twenty to forty per cent., and in the 



