p. 186 | Our Eyes by Dio Lewis

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 16, 1865

Our Eyes.

By Dio Lewis

INDIGESTION is the principal source of weak eyes. Reading in the cars often seriously disturbs the vision. A delicate and wonderful apparatus within the eye is constantly busy in adapting it to the varying focal distances. The jerking motion of the cars compels an exhausting effort to maintain the required adaptation. Thousands of eyes are spoiled by reading in cars and other vehicles. Recently I was consulted by a railway expressman who had become totally blind by reading the newspapers in the cars. Thousands, who have never consciously suffered any inconvenience from the habit, are obliged to wear glasses prematurely to correct an unsteadiness of vision produced in this way. Reading with the gas-light before you is another cause of weak eyes. The light should always hang quite high and behind you, and allowed to shine over the shoulder. If convenient, over the left shoulder. If using kerosene, it is best to employ the lamps which hang on the wall. Neither should you read with your face toward the window.

Reading by twilight is dangerous. Gradually accommodating itself to the receding light, the eye is unconsciously strained. I have seen more than one case of grave disease of the eye, produced by an undue effort to use the vision too long at twilight.

White paint is another mischief to the eyes. White paint outside, white paint inside, white paint everywhere. During the season of brightest sunshine the glare hurts the eye. I wonder if it is not in bad taste likewise? I notice that artists have none of it about them.

In our constant reading, the eye-sight is much tried by

the white paper. I hope that the tinted paper, with a still deeper color, may become fashionable.

Avoid reading by artificial light when you can. We read too much. We read as we eat—pell-mell, hotch-ity-potch; no mastication, no digestion. If, as a people, we read less, we might know more. Few indications are more unpromising in a child than a remarkable passion for books. I doubt if a good lady, who called on me the other day, with her son, will ever forgive me for what I said to her. Her boy was of the regular Boston type—great head and eyes, with small and narrow chest. She said in a mournful voice, but with evident pride: "Ah, doctor, he has such a passion for books. As soon as he is out of bed he is down at some great book and scarcely leaves it but for his meals. He never plays like other children."

I told her, among other things that unless she could break up that habit, her son would very likely turn out a dolt. She left very soon with the belief that I did not understand her son's case. I should have about as much hope of a man who gave himself up to childish sports as I should of a child who gave himself up to the habits and life of a man.

The newspapers have much to answer for in the way of small type and imperfect printing. I would cheerfully give two hundred dollars a year to support a newspaper which would give us, morning and evening a half column of the really reliable news, instead of fifteen columns of diluted speculations and tricky canards, the reading of which hurts our eyes and wastes our precious time.—Dio Lewis, M. D.