EYESTRAIN. 747 



pains in the eyes, owe these ills largely or wholly to such defects. Generally 

 neither they nor their parents nor their teachers are aware of the cause of 

 their troubles. The examination of hundreds of thousands of school children 

 has demonstrated that from twenty-five to thirty-five per cent, of them need 

 the services of an oculist or of an aurist or of both; these handicaps can be 

 removed and the children be able to receive the full benefits of instruction. In 

 Utica, New York, an examination of over 6,000 pupils showed that about thirty- 

 five per cent, were defective, and the report says " Our tests revealed many sad 

 and critical cases which were remediable because discovered at this stage of 

 development. Many parents could not strongly enough express their gratitude 

 to the teachers. Cases of what had been considered dullness or willful inatten- 

 tion on the part of pupils were shown to have been due to inability to see or 

 hear." In Chicago it was found that on entering school at the age of six years 

 thirty-two per cent, of the pupils had defective eyes. In the schools thirty- 

 seven per cent, of the girls and thirty-two per cent, of the boys, or an average 

 of thirty-five per cent., were defective and these tests were made by an expert. In 

 Minneapolis out of 25,696 pupils examined 8,166, or thirty-two per cent., had 

 defective eyesight. Similar conditions differing only in degree, have been 

 found wherever tests have been made. 



In New York City Dr. Cronin finds that over 30 per cent, of the 

 school children are suffering from the gross forms of defective eyesight. 

 It must be remembered that the worst defects are not included in these 

 statistics. 



Lastly, the greatest of the misfortunes which may be traced to this 

 cause are those connected with intellectual progress, the literary workers 

 being those who suffer most. In direct and indirect ways the advances 

 of civilization are most frequently conditioned upon use of the eyes in 

 writing and reading. Certainly one half or more of the great writers 

 and thinkers of the world have had their lives turned into tragedies of 

 personal affliction by this unsuspected cause. The biographies of Swift, 

 Nietzsche, Parkman, George Eliot, the Carlyles, Whittier, Darwin, 

 Wagner, Taine, Symonds, Heine, De Quincey, Huxley, Lewes, Mar- 

 garet Fuller, Jules Verne, de Maupassant, Balzac, Berlioz and many 

 others are filled with pathetic evidences of the truth. It is noteworthy 

 that in the monumental ' Life of Wagner/ Dr. Ellis, who is at once 

 physician, musician and biographer, after exhaustive research, confirms 

 the theory that eyestrain was the chief cause of the poignant physical 

 sufferings of that great genius. And what influences such afflictions 

 have on the character of the men and of their works only the discerning 

 can surmise. The large majority of the men and women mentioned 

 above have a striking likeness as regards a certain harshness, even 

 bitterness, and a peculiar and pitiless insistence on logical distinctions; 

 all but one or two were pessimistic and unreligious. Only art saved 

 Wagner from an acerbity and skepticism, illustrated by his enemy- 

 friend Nietzsche and his philosopher, Schopenhauer. It does not re- 

 quire a great mind to recognize the profound influence of disease upon 

 character and philosophy. 



