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Show EYE STRAIN CAUSES MOST EYE TROUBLES DR. BURGESS STATES (Dr. Hugh Burgess) Vision is the most dominant and the most important function that we poss ess. It is also the most abused. The development of the human eye is slow, not being fully developed until puberty and naturally the tissues of the young are very delicate. Educational Educa-tional standards of today require more than ever before; hence, the eyes are being put under strain from the beginning of school. One hundred years ago, and farther back, people did not have eye strain because the ordinary run of persons could not read. The Eyesight Conservation Council of America through a very exaustive survey all over the United States came to the conclusion that fifty per cent of the twenty five million school children in, America are suffering from eye strain. Reports from welfare wel-fare societies show that 50 per cent of industrial workers have defective eye sight; so it might appear as if people did not see as well as they used us-ed to and there are more diseases, but this is not true. Statistics from all civilized countries show that each year total blindness is relatively on the decrease. The most widespread of all eye trouble is eye strain. Eye strain and its effects cause more pain and disability dis-ability than all the other eye troubles combined. It is responsible for more headaches than all other causes. Our most conservative scientists of today agree that seven out of ten headache? come from the eyes. Eyestrain is caused by excessive efforts to use imperfect im-perfect eyes without correcting glasses glass-es or with glasses improperly prescribed pre-scribed and fitted. But a perfect eye may be strained by improper use or excessive use without proper periods of rest or by improper lighting. Defective De-fective eyes cause the most trouble. There are very few pairs of eyes that can be said to be absolutely perfect. At least, says a noted Chicago physician, physic-ian, 60 per cent of eyes are so defective defec-tive as to cause ill-health, reduced efficiency, or poor sight. Nerve-energy is used up very rapidly rapid-ly when one has defective eyes; hence the army of nervous wrecks. Chicago is very active in eyesight conservation in the schools. With half a million children in the Chicago city schools the. eyesight of these children is a matter of grave consideration. consid-eration. Many sight-saving classes are organized and maintained by the Board of Education. This is economically econom-ically sound. Every dollar thus invested in-vested in prevention yields dividends in good eyesight an more. It costs $10,000 to educate one blind person. Every child in the public schools in Chicago costs the city $72. Every time a child fails to make his grade it costs an additional $72. With 200 children in the sight-saving classes where poor sight does not retard their progress, $14,400 is saved to the city, annually. Then, these will be successful success-ful instead of failures. Out. of the 4981 children examined last fall in Southern Utah, 11.1 per cent were so defective that they needed need-ed glasses or treatment. This percentage per-centage is very low compared to statistics sta-tistics all over the' United States and covers those only in decided need of attention. The percentage of children needing attention in Beaver County were 14.4. The percentage in each community is as follows: Beaver, 16.5; Greenville, 19.8; Minersville 13.6; Mil-ford, Mil-ford, 11.7. The importance of correcting the defects of school children cannot be over estimated. It is an established fact that eighty five to ninety per cent of all our knowledge is acquired directly di-rectly through the eyes. A child with defective vision is handicapped in his studies and many failures can be traced trac-ed directly to the cause. In many cases cas-es those corrected raised their grades from below average to superior rating when they were considered below normal mentally. Several mal-nurish-ed children gained their normal weight after a proper correction. Educational propaganda is doing much to spread the gospel of good sight. People must be taught and warned that blindness is an ever-present menace. Ignorance and neglect are the great enemies of good sight. The importance of the eyes in acquiring acquir-ing an education, cannot be over estimated. |