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| Lelouch... |
 Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 1:08 pm |
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[...]
Stories from the Clinic
11: A Case of Cataract
By Emily C. Lierman
One day last July a man of forty came to the clinic suffering from
cataract and a complication of other troubles. As I approached him he
was palming. This was an unusual thing for a stranger to do, but he
evidently thought that if covering with the eyes with the palms was
good for others it might help him also. I stood before him and said:
"Can I help you?"
He paid no attention to me whatever, and I soon discovered that he was
deaf, so deaf that one had almost to scream into his left or better
ear to make him hear. When I had at last succeeded in making him
understand me he asked:
"Is it possible that you will be able to do anything for me?"
I answered: "I am going to try, with your help."
Then I said I wanted to know something about the history of his case,
and this is what he told me:
At the age of six he fell down a flight of stairs, and struck his
forehead on a newel post, severing an artery in the head. Later, when
it was noted that his sight was deficient, physicians attributed the
condition to this fall. During the thirty-four subsequent years he had
been treated by many New York physicians, both at their offices and
clinics. During that period he had been blind three times, and
surgical treatment had been repeatedly necessary. As a boy he could
never see a blackboard at school, and could read but little. Between
his twenty-first and his thirty-fifth year he had enjoyed the best
vision of his life; but for the past five years his sight had been
steadily declining, and several doctors had told him that this would
continue until he became completely blind. He was now practically
blind in one eye so far as useful vision was concerned. I tested his
sight, and found that he could count his fingers at about three feet
with the right eye, and with the left could see only the movements of
his hand. Dr. Bates had previously examined him, and had found that he
had an inflammatory cataract in the left eye, together with other
inflammatory conditions.
I told him to palm again, and he complained that he saw all sorts of
bright colors, and that these disturbed him very much. I then told him
to remove his hands from his eyes and look at the large letter on the
test card, which I held a foot away from him. After he had tried a few
times he was able to remember the letter with his eyes closed; then
the bright colors faded away, and after palming for fifteen minutes
his vision improved from 1/200 to 1/50 in the right eye, while in the
left he became able to count my fingers at three feet. Next clinic day
he became able to read 3/30 with the right eye and 1/10 with the left,
while at the end of two weeks the vision of the right eye had improved
to 3/10 and of the left to 3/70. At the same time his general health
had improved so much that he asked me if I had time to let him tell me
about it. I told him that I would be very glad to hear the story, and
what he had to say interested me so much that I thought the readers of
"Better Eyesight" might be interested also.
"For many years," he related, "I have suffered from insomnia, and in
recent months it has been nothing unusual for me to remain awake the
entire night. Frequently I stay up all night, realizing the futility
of trying to induce sleep. A short time ago I did this twice in a
single week. When I do sleep my slumber has been very light and
disturbed by the wildest imaginable dreaming—fires, murders,
hairbreadth escapes, etc. As a result of the insomnia and eyestrain I
had frequently splitting headaches, sometimes every day, and sometimes
even twice a day. From these I could secure relief only by the use of
what I knew to be harmful medicines. Since I came to you I have been
sleeping very much better, the dreams have become much less
disturbing, and the headaches have practically ceased."
Hearing this, I was encouraged to try to do even more for him; so I
handed him a test card, and asked him to look at a small letter, close
his eyes and remember it, and then imagine it blacker and clearer than
he saw it. He was able to do this, and the constant twitching of his
eyelids ceased. For a moment I forgot that he was deaf and said in an
even voice: "How do your eyes feel now?"
He heard me, and answered:
"They feel so rested just now I do not feel that I have eyes at
all, but am seeing without them."
He came three days every week for three months, and then as he
improved, he came less frequently. When I last saw him he was able,
with his left eye, to read 3/10 at times, and with his right 5/10,
while his hearing had improved so much that I was able to talk into
his better ear without raising my voice much above my ordinary
conversational tone. At the same time he had been relieved of head
noises, including a drumming in the ears, which, he said, had often
continued for from three to ten days. When he first came he could not
go about alone, and always walked like an intoxicated person, for
which he was frequently taken. When he left the clinic I noticed that
he bumped against the benches and he told me that the condition had
been attributed by physicians whom he had consulted to incipient
locomotor ataxia. After his first visit, however, he never bumped into
the furniture, and before he left us his walk was almost normal.
____
Snellen Test Cards
There should be a Snellen test card in every family and in every
school classroom. When properly used it always improves the sight even
when it is already normal. Children or adults with errors of
refraction, if they have never worn glasses, are cured simply by
reading every day the smallest letters they can see at a distance of
ten, fifteen, or twenty feet.
For Sale By
The Central Fixation Publishing Company
Paper—50 Cents
Cardboard (folding)—75 Cents
Delivered
A limited number of reprints of articles by Dr. Bates published in
other medical journals also for sale. Send for list. Also back numbers
of "Better Eyesight". First twelve numbers, $3.00; bound in cloth,
$1.25 extra; single copies, 30 cents.
____
Cataract Number
Better Eyesight
A monthly magazine devoted to the prevention and cure of imperfect
sight without glasses
Copyright, 1921, by the Central Fixation Publishing Company
Editor—W. H. Bates, M.D.
Publisher—Central Fixation Publishing Co.
$2.00 per year, 20 cents per copy
342 West 42nd Street, New York, N. Y.
Vol. IV - January 1921 - No. 1
____
[...] |
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| Neil Brooks... |
| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 2:30 pm |
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On Oct 26, 5:08 pm, Lelouch <misa... at (no spam) googlemail.com> wrote:
[quote][...]
Stories from the Clinic
[/quote]
[unverifiable, third-hand anecdote from long-dead person snipped] |
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| Mike Tyner... |
| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 7:56 pm |
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"Lelouch" <misa426 at (no spam) googlemail.com> wrote
[quote]Children or adults with errors of
refraction, if they have never worn glasses, are cured
simply by reading every day the smallest letters they
can see at a distance of ten, fifteen, or twenty feet.
[/quote]
If you ever go to college, you will find this embarrassing.
-MT |
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| Dan Abel... |
| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 8:40 pm |
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In article <fPadnYiiOv72znvXnZ2dnUVZ_qSdnZ2d at (no spam) giganews.com>,
"Mike Tyner" <mtyner at (no spam) mindspring.com> wrote:
[quote]"Lelouch" <misa426 at (no spam) googlemail.com> wrote
Children or adults with errors of
refraction, if they have never worn glasses, are cured
simply by reading every day the smallest letters they
can see at a distance of ten, fifteen, or twenty feet.
If you ever go to college, you will find this embarrassing.
[/quote]
You amuse me, Mike. After all these years, you haven't noticed that
these people aren't embarrassed by *anything*. Remember "The Emperor's
New Clothes"? That's what they wear, all the time.
--
Dan Abel
Petaluma, California USA
dabel at (no spam) sonic.net |
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