Shall We Become A Nation Of Spectacle-wearers?

The time is not many generations distant, if we may credit the theory of many oculista that near-sightedness is hereditary, when babies wil] be born with spectaeles aatride their innocent nosos, only to be cast aside in the decline of life, when our grand-parents were wont to begin wearing them. Somo interesting facts coneerniDg the cause and prevalence of myopia were lately given in a paper lead by Dr. Edward G. Loring before the County Medical Society of New York. Of 2,000 pupila carefnlly examined in the New York schools, 13 per cent. wero found, at 6 and 7 yearu of age, to have defective visión, while the proportioa at 20 and 21 years had increased to nearly 40 per cent. The Germans are particularly noted as a nation of spcctacle-wearers, and no less than 62 per cent. of the Germau children who pass tlirough the public schools havo their eyes affectcd by the process. In America Dr. Loring thinks the percentage of myopic variation up to the time of puberty is greater even than in Germany. And this alarmïng increase of weak eyesight is lnrgely owing to our compulsory educational system. ïhe eyes are particularly susceptible to iujury in the poriod of rapid development between the tenth and fifteenth years, when children are 3rst uudergoing tho stress of earnest study at school. Lsitcr oii, if myopia ïas not already set in, the eyes become aore hardened, so to speak, and cnpajle of severer use. To overeóme this national tendfney to near-sightedness, t ík suggested that school children shall have the burden of atudy lightened luring their more plastic years, repairQg what may bc thus lost by severer application after the beginning of the sixteenth year. It is observed that the Snglish adhere more closely to this }]an than other nations, and that consejuently as a people they are comparaively Iree from the speetacle plague.