FOCALIZATION.
The act of focalization is a muscular act and requires an effort, an output of nervous energy, just as much in
proportion as any other muscular act, such as lifting a weight or shoving a saw or a jack plane. The eye that is normally shaped forms pictures of objects, more than a few feet distant, on its back wall without any muscular effort, and has to focalize only when engaged in near work. But the oversighted eye is compelled to do this extra work all the time, except when closed. If it did not focalize, it would see indistinctly. This it refuses to do, independently of any volition on the part of its owner. The eye that can see distinctly will see distinctly, no matter how great the strain, and this by a volition apparently entirely its own. The results are headache, vertigo, nausea, nervousness, irritability, and other disagreeable reflex conditions, besides the pain and inflammation, and other symptoms manifested in the eyes themselves. Of course, the only remedy in such cases is glasses, and these glasses should be carefully selected by a competent person, and should be worn as much of the time as is necessary to relieve the eye strain. I find in Taggart's Times, February 5, 1888, the following: "A French philosopher has said that a man who wears gold-bowed spectacles always admires himself, and it would seem as though spectacles were becoming a sort of badge of distinction, since young and old who have the slightest excuse for using them put them on.