78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



series of examinations at Amherst College, with the purpose of noting 

 the progress of near-sight in the same class and in the same individu- 

 als. The freshman and sophomore classes 1,880 and 1,879 were 

 required to report to him ; and twenty-seven per cent, of the former 

 and twenty-eight per cent, of the latter were found to be near-sighted. 

 In the fall of 1876 they were again examined, when the disease was 

 found to have progressed in one-half the number of those previously 

 found to be myopic. In January, 1877, he examined the eyes of 122 

 volunteers from the freshman class of Harvard College a little 

 more than half the class of whom 29.5 per cent, were found to be 

 near-sighted. Of these, twenty-two per cent, had supposed their sight 

 to be normal. He describes his blank-printed forms as 



" filled in with the name and age of each individual, the state of each of his 

 eyes as separately tested by glasses and the ophthalmoscope, the amount of his 

 vision, and remarks on his previous history and family peculiarities in this re- 

 gard. Blanks are left for a similar examination at the close of the senior year." 



In his report to President Eliot,' he urges the advantages to the 

 student of 



" reliable information at the outset of his collegiate career as to the state of 

 his eyes, their availability for study, and the course he must pursue to maintain 

 their integrity, or keep existing evils from increasing. At the termination of 

 his undergraduate course he learns the effect of his four years of study, and is 

 thereby enabled to form or modify his future plans." 



His report closes with an illustration of the development of near- 

 sight in a person born free from it, but inheriting a strong tendency 

 to it. During nine years from the age of ten to nineteen sugges- 

 tions several times offered with regard to rest and treatment having 

 been unheeded, a progressive change had occurred, ranging from per- 

 fect soundness in one eye, and a very slight degree represented by 

 " 0.75 " of near-sight in the other, to a high degree of near-sight, rep- 

 resented by "5.50" in each. If advice and warning are still unheed- 

 ed, he thinks " an amount of structural change may be brought about 

 incompatible with the integrity of the eye through life." 



But while it appears to be conceded that near-sight is of infre- 

 quent occurrence among the illiterate classes, the question is a very 

 natural one, "Have examinations been made, for comparison, of the 

 eyes of any classes of young persons other than those engaged in 

 study?" Dr. Cohn examined the eyes of many peasant-children, liv- 

 ing in a state of comparative simplicity, and having little or no occa- 

 sion to tax or strain the sight, and found that hardly two in a hundred 

 of them were near-sighted. Examinations have been made also of 

 the sight of young factory-operatives in large manufacturing towns 

 in Europe, and the results exhibit a low percentage of myopia, corre- 

 sponding to that of the peasant-children here cited. Dr. Howe says : 



1 Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, March 22, 1877. 



