QUESTION OF PHYSICAL DEGENERATION 261 



For our purpose it is important to discover (l) whether a Eyesight 

 large percentage of the men and women of civilised nations have 

 defective eyesight; (2) whether the defect is congenital; (3) 

 whether the percentage is increasing. 



Hermann Cohn l has tested the sight of thousands of school 

 children at Breslau, and he finds that sight is much better on the 

 average than it was thirty-three years ago, the percentage of 

 schoolboys and girls having abnormal vision being 19-2 in 1865 

 and only 10-5 in 1898. The improvement is so enormous that 

 it is impossible not to suspect that there has been error some- 

 where. Though the test has been the same, the conditions may 

 have been in some way different. Cohn himself frankly suggests 

 a cause of error. There has been competition between classes, 

 one wishing to "over-trump" another. And when a boy who 

 is undergoing examination is trying to make out figures at a 

 certain distance, he may be prompted by one who is standing 

 nearer ! 2 This might account for results that are otherwise 

 inexplicable. The author in fact throws but little light on the 

 subject of our inquiry. The question of congenital defect seems 

 not to occur to him. He is an enthusiast who attributes the 

 whole evil to unhealthy conditions, and who hopes to remove it 

 by improvement in the lighting of schools, by the use of proper 

 glasses, and generally by better treatment of the eyes. No 

 doubt he has done good work by directing attention to the 

 importance of such things, but he does not go to the root of the 

 matter. 



Much valuable information is to be obtained from the report 

 published by Dr Brudenell Carter on The vision of children attending 

 elementary schools in London* The sight of 8125 children was 

 tested, and it was found that only 39*15 per cent, had normal 

 vision in both eyes. This sounds very bad, but in most cases 

 the defect amounted only to subnormality. The bald statement 

 of the percentage would, therefore, give a very erroneous im- 

 pression. Adopting the standard below which candidates for the 



1 Die Sehleistungen von 50.000 Bre?lauer Schulkindern. Bre.^lau: S. Schott- 

 laender, 1899. 



2 Loc. cit. p. 60. 



3 Printed by Messrs Eyre & Spottiswoode. 



