474 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



learning is identical with advanced culture, then, indeed, knowledge is a 

 dangerous present of civilization as regards the sight. And if knowledge is 

 transmitted to our brains by means of our eyesight in badly-lighted and 

 badly-ventilated rooms through small and indistinct print, and by sacrificing 

 proper rest and sleep, then shortsightedness will make its appearance in a 

 more aggravated form, and more quickly, than under proper hygienic con- 

 ditions. 



In order to stem the tide of short sight, Prof. Cohn, in Breslau, makes 

 the following demands to the schools throughout the civilized world — de- 

 mands to which I fully consent : — 



For the protection of eye and sight of school-children it is necessary — 



1. To have a pause of fifteen minutes after every lesson of three-quarters 

 of an hour. 



2. To pause half an hour at eleven o'clock, if the morning instructions 

 are carried on during five hours. 



3. To have a reading board for testing the sight fixed in the room. If 

 certain letters canuot be distinguished at a certain distance, the pupil must 

 rest the organ. 



4. To shorten the lessons and the tasks at home. 



5. To introduce lessons on hygiene in all schools, colleges, and univer- 

 sities. 



6. Every Council of Education shouid have a medical man as a member. 



7. To close, by law, all school-rooms which are badly lighted and insuf- 

 ficiently ventilated. 



In G-ermany, the nursery of short-sightedness, the above injunctions are 

 of vital importance. But also England should adopt them, as the evil of 

 short sight has increased rapidly in that country during the last twenty 

 years. Australia and New Zealand are in a too sympathizing contact with 

 the motherland to be entirely excluded from the unpleasant influences of 

 the latter. 



It is true that short-sightedness is often hereditary, but this must not 

 be thoxxght to mean that the children of short-sighted parents are born 

 short-sighted. They have only the predisposition to become so, and their 

 predisposition is developed during school-life, more or less, according to 

 certain external conditions ; and the more so, of course, under conditions 

 which tend to produce short sight even in children who have no hereditary 

 predisposition. 



Prof. Sibreich points out and demonstrates that short-sightedness has 

 also an injurious influence on the general health by inducing a habit of 

 stooping. Its increase from a national point of view is to be considered a 

 serious evil. In former times, when literary education was confined to a 



