56, THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gymnasia between thirty and fifty-five per cent, of the pupils are 

 myopic. 



University students have so far been examined only in Breslau 

 and Tubingen. I found in 1867 fifty-three per cent, among the Cath- 

 olic theologues, fifty-five per cent, of the law students, fifty-six per 

 cent, of the medical students, sixty-seven per cent, of the evangelical 

 theologues, and sixty-eight per cent, of the students of philosophy, to 

 be short-sighted. In July, 1880, I again examined our medical stu- 

 dents, and found that fifty-two per cent, of those who had not passed 

 the examen physicimi, and sixty-four per cent, of the candidates who 

 had already stood the examination, were myopic ; and I am convinced 

 that the work of preparing for the examination in this as well as in 

 the other departments contributes to the increase of near-sightedness. 

 Dr. Gartner, between 1861 and 1879, examined six hundred and thirty- 

 four students of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Tubingen, 

 and found that seventy -nine per cent, of them were myopic. 



If we inquire into the bearing of nationality on the development 

 of the affection, w^e find that in the gymnasia at Upsala thirty-seven 

 per cent., at St. Petersburg thirty-one per cent., at Dorpat fifty-five 

 per cent., at Lyons twenty-two per cent., at Tiflis thirty-seven per cent., 

 at New York twenty-seven per cent., at Boston twenty-eight per cent., 

 of the students are myopic. In the gymnasia of St. Petersburg thirty- 

 four per cent, of the Russian, and only twenty-four per cent, of the 

 German scholars ; at Tiflis, thirty per cent, of the Russians, thirty- 

 eight per cent, of the Armenians, and forty-five per cent, of the Geor- 

 gians, w^ere short-sighted. Of five hundred and twenty-nine teachers 

 in Lucerne, fourteen per cent, of the Latin Swiss, twenty-four per 

 cent, of the German Swiss, were affected. Loring and Derby ob- 

 served in New York, in 1876, that fourteen per cent, of the children 

 of Irish, twenty per cent, of American, and tw^enty-four per cent, of 

 German parents, w^ere near-sighted. At the International Congress 

 of Physicians, held in Paris in 1867, 1 confidently addressed every one 

 who wore spectacles in German, and was sure to receive a German 

 answer. It is possible that the Germans have become more than 

 ordinarily predisjDosed to short-sightedness, by the operation of com- 

 pulsory education through several generations ; but this can not yet 

 be taken for granted, for relatively only a small proportion of non- 

 German school children have been examined. The statements of all 

 the authorities establish, however, that everywhere, and in all institu- 

 tions, the number of myopes increases from class to class, and becomes 

 really formidable in the secunda and prima of the gymnasia and real 

 schools, and the corresponding classes of other schools. It ranges at 

 between thirty-five and sixty per cent, of the whole number of schol- 

 ars ; but the proportion has been found to exceed sixty per cent, in 

 the prima of several German gymnasia, and to rise to eighty per cent, 

 at Erlangen, and one hundred per cent, at Heidelberg. Taking the 



