94 
POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 
[June, 1890. 
of the eye», caunrli of the e^es, twitching, liead- 
aclie, etc., can l»e prevented; or, where Ihey have 
already occurred as consequences of long-sight, they 
are usually at once and permanently removed as 
goon as the hyperopia is corrected by appropriate 
glasses. Squint is also thus prevented by glasses, 
and in a certain number of cases where it is already- 
manifested in children, it may be remedied by cor- 
recting the existing error of refraction. 
Myopia, or short-sight, is often hereditary or con- 
genital, but may be acquired from prolonged strain- 
ing of the eye. This condition is not infrequently 
the precursor of serious, and sometimes irremedia- 
ble impairment of vision, and hence skilled advice 
and proper glasses are of highest importance to the 
patient in preventing the accidents to which every 
myopic eye is liable. In high degrees of myopia 
there is an excessive demand made upon the muscles 
that converge the eyes, in the efforts made to keep 
them both fixed upon small objects held close to the 
face, and sometimes, being unable to withstand this 
strain, they give out, and one eye is then turned 
outward by the opposing muscle, forming a diver- 
gent squint. Very serious intra-ocular changes, that 
are be3ond the reach of therapeutic measures, are 
sometimes occasioned by high degrees of myopia. 
Short-sighted eyes, above all others, require the 
most rigid hygiene. The vision should be rendered 
normal — except in very high degrees — by the use ol 
concave spherical glasses, and everything which 
tends to congest the eyes — such as reading or writ- 
ing in the recumbert sr stooping posture, or by 
faulty light — is to be most carefully avoided. 
Presbyopia, or the far-sight of old age, is caused 
by a lack of power of accommodation, and, although 
distant vision remains unimpaired, there is a con- 
stant recession of the near point. This is first 
noticed by the patient when he finds that he is 
obliged to hold his paper farther away from his 
eyes than before, and that the print is not so clear as 
formerly. Presbyopia is easily corrected by convex 
glasses for reading, and they should be employed as 
soon as the affection becomes manifest. It does not 
usually cause inconvenience until after the age of 
forty. Far-sightedness, when not corrected by 
appropriate glasses, causes the condition of presby- 
opia to manifest itself earlier in life than it does in 
eyes not thus affected, or in those in which the 
error has been properly corrected. 
In astigmatism, or irregular sight, the refraction 
dilfers in different portions, or meridians, of the 
eye, and the retinal image is thus confused. This 
condition is usually congenital and may be hered- 
itary ; it is, however, sometimes acquired, often 
occurring after inflamtnations of the cornea, and 
may even be occasioned by the use of improper 
glasses. It is a very common optical defect, and is 
corrected — according to the variety — either by cylin- 
drical lenses, or by combining cylindrical with either 
spherical or cylindrical lenses. Irregular astigma- 
tism cannot be entirely corrected. As astigmatism 
is either a variety of hyperopia, or of myopia, or a 
mixture of both, it can be productive of the train 
of symptoms already shown to be occasioned by 
these errors of refraction — such as headache, dizzi- 
ness, nausea, and nervous irritability; — and conse- 
quently, in all varieties of astigmatism, suitable 
glasses (preferably spectacles) should be worn con- 
tinually, for both distant and near vision. 
A different refractive condition in the two eyes of 
the same person is quite common. One eye may be 
correct, and the other long-sighted or short-sighted ; 
or they may have different degrees of the same 
defect; or, again, one eye may be long-sighted and 
the other short-sighted. And since, in such cases, 
the condition of one eye can scarcely be improved 
by the same glass adapted to correct the error in the 
other, the vast impropriety of selecting glasses at 
random from the counter of a dealer, is plainly 
obvious. Both eyes must be tested separately, and 
fitted accordingly. Where it is known that presby- 
opia — the condition due to age — alone exists, pa- 
tients may select their own glasses, for at any given 
time the amount of presbyopia is usually the same 
in both eyes, and may be corrected for anv given 
distance, according to the needs or convenience of 
the patient. As age iidvances, the amount of pres- 
byopia increases, and new and stronger glasses will 
be from time to time required. 
Ileterophoria, or weakness of some one or more 
of the ocular muscles, is very often a complication 
of some error of refraction. In this condition there 
is a continual strain upon the weaker muscle in 
order to do its work, and this alone will cause very 
many headaches, neuralgias, and general nervous 
symptoms. We have already considered this sub- 
ject in cases where the irregular action of the 
muscles of the eyeball is sufficiently marked to 
produce squint, but ofttimes there is merely a loss of 
function, which can be determined only by careful 
examination. This condition, which is termed 
muscular insufliciency, is overcome by correcting 
the refractive error, and combining the glasses thus 
required with properly selected and applied prisms. 
Let us now look at some common troubles not 
generally known to be due to ocular defects. Not a 
small number of reflex neuroses are caused by these 
defects. Headaches which come on after sewing, 
reading, watching a play, or otherwise using the 
visual organs in a special direction for a period of 
time, are usually the direct results of these defects. 
Neuralgia, dizziness, mental depression, melan- 
cholia, chorea (St. Vitus' dance), and even epilepsy, 
have been shown to be directly dependent, in certain 
cases, upon refractive errors for their causation. 
Out of nine cases of epilepsy in which there were 
optical defects, recently experimented upon, four 
cases were positively cured by correction of the 
defects ; two of the cases were entirely relieved for 
periods of four and six months, respectively; in 
another case the fits were greatly reduced in number 
during a given period of time, after the application 
of proper spectacles; while two cases were not 
influenced by glasses. Recurring styes are not in- 
frequently due to some optical defect, and when 
thus occasioned they are to be cured, not by pulling 
out the lashes, but by having the defect corrected. 
That by improving his defective vision, one is 
enabled to pursue life's duties to better advantage, 
and with increased convenience to himself, need not 
be insisted upon. Some people go through much 
or all of life content — through ignorance or preju- 
dice — with seeing but half of their surroundings, 
and often enduring the ills which we have seen to 
result from remediable ocular defects. To some 
people glasses are a revelation— revealing powers 
and beauties of vision never before known to exist 
In conclusion, let me repeat, that in the condi- 
tions herein briefly considered, glasses not only 
increase the power of vision and greatly relieve the 
work of the eye, but they actually prevent the 
occurrence of certain diseases of the eye, and ol 
reflex affections in other parts of the body, and 
effect the preservation of good vision throughout 
life. J. II. E. 
Discriminating Providence. — It is remarked as 
a singularly thoughtful dispensation of Providence 
in Boston, that the influenza attacked most frequently 
and severely those who were at work on salary, and 
that those who worked by the piece or day were 
either spared entirely or had light attacks. "Tem- 
pering the wind to the shorn lamb" is what one 
paper calls it 
[Original in P.ipulur Svi-nce iVewS-i 
WOMEN IN PHARMACY. 
BY ELLA HlGf;iN.SON. 
Check oft' on your fingers — the fingers of one 
hand will be sufficient — the number of women you 
know who^are engaged in the practice of pharmacv. 
By this I mean women who are skillful prescription- 
ists and successful druggists. I need only one hand 
and two fingers to check off the number I know. 
Why are there not more women engaged in this 
work.' We have women clerks, book-keepers, type- 
writers, stenographers, j-eporters, lawyers, physi- 
cians, dentists, — but how few women pharmacists. 
Of course, we all know women in city drug stores 
who sell the little perfumed odds and ends — the 
powders, rouges, puft's, scented soaps, etc. — that 
live in the great show-cases. But do these women 
ever go behind the prescription-case.' If you hand 
them one of those square, gilt-edged slips of paper, 
whereon a doctor has illegibly scrawled his auto- 
graph, do they not, aft'ably, as a matter of course, 
wave you on to the "prescription-clerk.'" 
In this country the practice of pharmacy goes 
hand in hand with the drug business. And I do 
not hesitate to say that there is no work and no 
business to which woman is really better adapted 
than to this. Her fingers are light, her touch is 
delicate and sensitive; her sleeping hours are — or 
should be — longer than those of her brother pre- 
scriplionist, and her mind, in consequence, clearer 
and more vigorous; her nerves strong and steady. 
She is light of foot and movement, quick, neat, and 
conscientious. Making an ointment is as fascinat- 
ing a work as rubbing to a cream a cup of butter 
and two cups of sugar — the first step toward making 
a flaky cake which a good housewive invariably 
takes; making an emulsion is not more dillicult 
than smoothly mixing a salad, so the oil and vinegar 
will smother their antagonisms and softly blend, to 
the delight of the epicurean; even the rolling, cut- 
ting, and gilding of pills is interesting and delight- 
ful work. 
Then why are there not more women in pharmacy .' 
"The hours are too long and the pay is too small." 
True. Yet not true, either; for good drug clerks 
are very scarce, and they get their own price and 
their own hours. We all know the drug clerk who 
meanders meekly behind the counter and looks at 
a customer with a blank, questioning stare, as if he 
had found life, marriage, and everything else a 
failure, and didn't care who knew it, either. He 
says, " Yes'm," or "No'm," or "It looks like rain," 
or "It looks like snow," — as the state of affairs may 
require ; and the next time a box of lozenges is 
wanted the customer looks up a drug store with an 
agreeable clerk. But there is a kind of clerk who is 
worth his weight in gold. In the first place, he is 
thoroughly coinpetent. He looks carefully at the 
label of a bottle when he takes it down, and again 
when he replaces it. His employer does not lie 
awake nights with the imaginary honor hanging 
over him of a fatal mistake on the part of his clerk. 
He knows what to say to a customer, and — best of 
all— he knows what not to say. With his eyes alone 
he can hold four or five customers waiting while 
he serves one. In a word, he is a pharmacist, a 
thorough business man, and a refined gentleman, 
and he will receive all the way from $100 to $150 a . 
month, because he will be worth that to his em- 1 
ployer, and in the near future he will have a drug 
store of his own. 
There is no earthly reason why a woman should 
not be as valuable as a man ; nor is there any reason 
why she should not save her earnings, and some 
day own a modest store herself A girl of fifteen 
years of age, who has a plain, sensible education, — | 
