HEADACHE.
"When one suffers from headache, he is told that he overstrains the nerves of the eyes, and must relieve this by the use of spectacles. When things dance before the sight, the cure for that is also spectacles; and when tired with close attention to work, the cure for wearied eyes is not rest, but spectacles.
"People who live much out of doors are usually very keen-sighted, owing probably to the ever-varying impressions made on the eyes, and this might reasonably suggest that the proper relief for a great many eye troubles would be a change from overwork."
I can only say that the person who wrote it seems not only to be prejudiced against glasses, but to know very little of the anatomy and physiology of the eye. The fact is that oversighted and astigmatic eyes, needing glasses to relieve the constant and severe strain upon the accommodative muscular apparatus, are benefited by rest and by change of air and occupation only to a limited degree. Real rest for such eyes is possible only from the use of glasses. Moreover, it is not possible for all who suffer from fatigue of the eyes to take the time for rest. It is necessary for many to use their eyes daily and almost constantly in order to make a living for themselves and for those dependent upon them. There is much more good sense in the paragraphs which follow and which are extracted from the same article.
"It is not surprising that so many school children suffer with weak eyes when we consider the conditions under which they are forced to use them. The very fact that the light in many school rooms is twice strained through glass partitions before it penetrates the inside rooms is in itself a severe test of sight. The preponderance of sash-wood over the panes of glass is anything but propitious to clear seeing. With heads bent over desks doing arithmetical examples, or studying the fine printed school books, or reading their own imperfect handwriting from which many of the lessons must be learned, the only wonder is that all the little ones are not purblind before they reach the grammar schools.