690 Mr. Ernest Clarke [June 9, 



amusements as the threading of beads or fine sewing should be 

 strictly forl)idden, especially if the children have a history of myopia, 

 that is, if one or both parents are myopic. 



The treatment is very simple. The eyes are thoroughly tested 

 under some form of atropine if the patient is under forty or forty- 

 five, all the eiTors are corrected completely, and the glasses are given 

 to be worn always. It is very difficult to get young people to do 

 this, as they can see so well without glasses for near work, but it is 

 most imperative that it should be insisted upon ; thus, not only is 

 the work put further back from the eye and undue convergence 

 prevented, but the muscle of accommodation is brought into play. 

 It is not only the excessive convergence which is bad, and which 

 causes increased myopia, but it is the excess of convergence over 

 accommodation which does harm. 



Some years ago I collected statistics of 532 myopes that I had 

 fully corrected and watched for a period of five years. Out of those 

 532 myopes only four progressed to any extent. "We now know 

 that myopia is not a serious disease if the person is allowed to wear 

 glasses. 



This brings us to the main question, Why should there be any 

 difficulty about glasses being worn in the Army ? The whole subject 

 of refraction has so developed during the last fifty years, mainly, as 

 I have previously pointed out, through the work of Bonders, that we 

 are in quite a different position to-day from that which existed even 

 twenty years ago. So many men are now giving up their time 

 entirely to eye-work that there is no difficulty in getting young 

 oculists to form part of the Army equipment. Each centre can have 

 its oculist, just as it has its surgeon, its chaj^lain, or its veterinary 

 surgeon, and under that oculist there can be one or more working 

 opticians, who would keep a register of all the glasses worn by the 

 men in that centre. Under these circumstances the reasons against 

 the wearing of glasses disappear, as a lost or broken spectacle can be 

 replaced in an hour or two, and there is no reason to fear any want 

 of proper working in the Army through the absence of glasses. At 

 the present time the War Office has made certain concessions. They 

 have appointed oculists at different centres, and also working 

 opticians, but we want to see the scheme adopted in its entirety. 

 We want to do away with our present bad plan of judging vision by 

 uncorrected sight instead of by corrected sight, as happens abroad. 

 In Great Britain vision iHthout glasses counts, whereas in all the 

 Armies abroad vision with glasses counts. Seven dioptres of myopia 

 are allovved in France and Italy, six in Austria, and G • 5 in Germany. 

 Our limit is about 2*5 of myopia, and the minimum uncorrected 

 sight allowed is -^^ in the right eye and yV in the left eye, which is 

 the last concession made. 



[Snellen's Sight Test was he. plained.] 



