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Show Are Our Eyes Getting Weaker? Defects of Vision Increase With Years Poor Light a Cause. When born, nearly all babies have normal eyes. With the same kind of care that carries them through Infancy In-fancy and childhood, happy and healthy their eyes should remain normal. But It has been found that by the time children finish grade school. 20 per cent of them have defective vision. vi-sion. When they have finished college, col-lege, 40 per cent have eye difficulties. Forty years of age shows 60 per cent with defective vision, and past sixty, 95 per cent are so affected. Why should the eyes of so many show such an alarming Increase in visional defects? Because these children, chil-dren, these growing girls and boys-young boys-young and older men and women, used their eyes with too little light 1 In the daytime outdoors there Is", of course, plenty of light the natural nat-ural daylight nature developed our eyes to see by. The light from- an unclouded sky gives us 10,000 foot cacdles. In the shade of a tree, the light will be upwards of 1,000 foot candles. Close by a window there may be 200 foot candles of light shining on your book page or needlework. needle-work. What Is a foot candle? It Is the scientist's "yardstick" of light measurement meas-urement The amount of light one candle would shine on a surface one foot away. But at night that is another story! It Is very common for people to read or sew with only four foot candles of light, where they should have an Illumination of at least 10 foot candles for the coarsest kind of eye-work; 20 foot candles for reading read-ing fine print and for sewing; 30 foot candles for continued use of the eye3. Using the eyes with less light than these minimum amounts may result In eye-strain and possible permanent Injury to vision. Be sure you have enough light 1 If you use electricity ask your light company to test your lamps and fixtures fix-tures to see If they give enough light for safe seeing. If you do cot have electricity, get one of the new 300 candle power pressure lamps that burn kerosene or gasoline. When your work Is held three feet away from the lamp, the latter should be of at least 275 candle power intensity to assure the 20 to 30 foot candles of light you need to protect your sight. It Is Important that you use a high candlepower lamp to be sure you have enough light to protect your sight |