The Eyes Have It

There ought to be in America a movement to make the American public more "eye conscious". The object of this article is to bring before the motoring public of Arizona peculiar mal-functions of the human eye, particularly among that great class of people who boast of perfect eye-sight, but who are proving to themselves conclusively, by the steadily mounting accident rate, that drastic steps must be taken to stem the tide of destruction which is gaining impetus daily. -Editor.

R. EDWING H. SILVER, Washington, D. C., chairman of the national advisory commission of vision for motor drivers, says that about every 17 minutes of the day and night someone is killed by an automobile, and it is well known that each year more persons are killed in automobile accidents in the United States than were killed in the same period of time during our participation in the World War.

We accept sight as we do sunshine or air, and, until there is a serious discomfort, we do nothing to keep the eyes functioning efficiently. We would not be so careless of other things concerned with comfortable living. Telephone companies inspect our phones, we have our watches cleaned and regulated but we expect our eyes to go on like Tennyson's brook "forever" giving good service.

The study of Light and Sight is of great antiquity. The Chinese have recognized the coordination of these two factors of comfort for many hundreds of years and perhaps one of the earliest records on the subject of vision is to be found in the Dialogues of Plato, where we read the following, purporting to be an explanation of vision: "The pure fire within us they (the Gods) made to flow through the eyes in a single, entire, smooth substance, at the same time compressing the center of the eye so as to retain all the denser elements and only to allow this to be sifted through pure. When therefore the light of day surrounds the stream of vision, then like falls upon like, and there is a union, and one body is formed by natural affinity-wherever the light that falls from within meets that which comes from an external object-whatever touches and is touched by thisstream of vision, their motions are diffused over the whole body and reach the soul, producing that perception which we call sight."

By DR. ROBERT E. SOLOSTH

Another of the first to devote himself to serious study of the eye and vision was Al Hazen, an Arabian mathematician, born in the year A. D. 965 in Cairo, Egypt. He repudiated the early idea that vision proceeded from the eye to the object, recognizing the true state of affairs, that light proceeded from object to the eye and that we see "mentally" by the interpretation of the small inverted picture which the lens system of the eye projects on the retina. Still another notable in this field was an English Monk, Roger Bacon, who first discovered the effect of the magnifying glass.Glare is a comparatively modern enemy to man and his comfort. It has been described as that part of light not necessary or useful to human sight. Our forefathers were not troubled by glare or excessive eyestrain, their source of light was from the sun, fil tered and broken by trees or reflected from cool green grass. By night the moon, supplemented by a lowly lamp or candle, feeble illumination if compared by modern standards of electricity and glaring automobile headlight, dazzling electric signs, glaring city streets and towering buildings which all direct to the eye that part of light not necessary for sight.

Protection of the eyes against the wrong kind of light should begin with the very young child, and this necessarily must be done for the infant, since it is not protected as many small animals are by the eyes not "opening" for several days after birth so as to give the very thin membranes which cover and surround the eye a chance to become of some use in protecting the eyes from glare. The young child should never be allowed to awaken from a nap or a night's rest with the direct rays of the sun or a strong light in it's face, nor should the adult ever make a practice of attempting to look at the sun as the dangerous elements of the sun's rays may permanently turn the sensitive nerve ends in the back of the eye and produce blindness.

Every good housekeeper likes to have things shine, every office worker likes to have his furnishings polished and neat, but there are places where shine is very dangerous and detrimental to good sight, and the tops of desks and tables, or work bench where the eyes come constantly in line with the reflections from these shiny surfaces is the wrong place for "shine" and will be found to produce discomfort and eye fatigue at an early hour of the working day.

Good Sight Imperative To Cut Accident Toll

Just as important as eliminating the wrong kind of light is the question of the proper kind and quantity of illumination. It will be found that there is a great difference in light and illumination. Light may come from any source, but proper illumination must be from a definite source and so arranged as to increase the visual efficiency of the person using it whether he be at his work or at the wheel of his motor car. It necessarily follows that the first principle involved in perfect eyesight in driving is undoubtedly properly directed illumination, which is furnished for our modern motor car by powerful headlights by night and by the sun by day. But how many of you have been forced from the road by the glaring headlights of an approaching car? You all know how impossible it is for you to see a pedestrian in front of you when an approaching car has his brightest lights shining straight at you, and how impossible it is to see the hand of a person wishing to make a left turn in front of you, when other cars' lights are shining in your face. If the iris, which is the diaphram that controls the amount of light reaching the sight centers of the eye, was very active, most of this glare would be eliminated. The great tragedy is that a large number of apparently normally seeing eyes have a very sluggishly reacting pupil.

When a badly directed headlight strikes you directly in the face, if that light is as bright or brighter than your own, the glare so shocks the delicate nerve fibres of sight, that vision is suspended completely just long enough for you to crash. Then for your own safety, if you do not consider the other fellow, dim your lights on the road so he can at least see how to get out of your way. With two automobiles approaching each other at the rate of 45 miles per hour, could you look at the average speedometer, they are actually approach-