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Show WOOD ALCOHOL BLINDS SCORES Age-long Tight Against Childhood Blindness Also Succeeding NEW YORK. June 3. The combined com-bined forces of medicine. legi?lation the press, and other educational agencies agen-cies are at last gelling the upper hand in the age-long fight against the prin cipal cause of blindne.-s in childhood - babies' sore eyes according to tho Beventt) annual report of the national committee for the prevention of blindness, blind-ness, made public at the general office of the committee in the Russell Sage Foundation building. CONSTANT PROPAGANDA But this information is counteracted by the (statement iu the report that there is no abatement In Ihe wave of blindness resulting from wood alcohol poisoning which started soon after tho enactment of the Volstead law. The report says that new legislation for the prevention of blindness has been passed in seven states: Connecticut., Idaho. Iowa. New Mexico. Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. Discussing ophthalmia neonatorum, more- commonly known as "babies' sore eyes" or "O. N " among doctors, Edward M. Van Cleve, managing director di-rector of lje national committee for the prevent ion of blindness, said "When we turu to a study ot the situation as respects this disease, I which dslrnvs at birth the vision of j thousands of babies, we find new evidence evi-dence of the effectiveness of ?. constant con-stant educational propaganda on the t-'ibjert. For more than 15 years public pub-lic attention has been drawn to this 'cause of needless blindness. Statistics i gathered during the last year show a smaller percentage of these cases amonc newly admitted pupils in special spe-cial schools for the blind throughout America than in any previous year" Whereas two years ago 23.2 per cent Of new admissions to thfiBf special : schools for Ihe blind wrv cist--; of : pupils blind from "O. N .". the 1922 report re-port of the committee shows thai In I the last year this percentage dropped to 13.5. a reduction ol almost 50 per cent. NAME CHANGE BENEFICIAL- Under the head of "Methanol," the new technical name for Tood alcohol, the report says: "Day by day the toll of wood alcohol poisoning is taken. I The wave seems to recede, only to I gain new impetus. Warnings pent ; broadcast oer the United States have undoubtedly prevented rnny from experiencing ex-periencing the tragedy of blindness, but there are still those who succumb to the temptation either through ignor ante or through wilfulness. The chant;., ot name to methanol has eiad-jicated eiad-jicated the suggestion or a beverage land a now method of preventing its use as such has lately neen offend, so coloring it with methyl violet that there can be no possibility of mistaking mistak-ing it for the grain product, an excellent excel-lent suggestion contributed by Di S. Lewis Ziegler. it is not uncommon for the committee to receive notices of four or five cases a day of poisoning poison-ing from thiM cause; these give no real intimation of the many who. possibly through partial immunity or because of the small amount consumed, suffer deterioration of sight ratner th3ii total to-tal blindness. Tbe change Is name ifrom wood' alcohol to methanol has I had considerable psychological effect.1' The committee also announces the production this year of a three reel moving picture entitled "Saving the Eyes of Youth " . oo |