SANITATION IN MASSACHUSETTS.
This subject was prominently considered by Dr. H. P. Walcott, of Boston, in his address on state medicine, at the meeting of the American Medical Association recently. The vital statistics of Massachusetts, he said, showed a declining death rate for the last thirty-six years, under the influence of state sanitation. The most marked decrease had been observed in the mortality from zymotic diseases; there had been a less decided reduction of that from constitutional diseases; that from local diseases had increased; and that from mental diseases and from violence had remained stationary. In 1876 there was not a single death from small-pox. Typhoid fever had diminished most in cities having a good system of sewerage and water supply, and least in towns without such improvements. Diphtheria, which reached its maximum in 1877, had since declined, until it now caused only one per cent. of the total mortality. Ovariotomy saved more lives than any other surgical operation, but, taking Somerville as a basis of calculation, the ascertained results of preventive medicine had saved more lives in ten years, among thirty thousand people, than ovariotomy would save in the same time among two millions. Great attention was given to small-pox, which had killed but 5,500 persons in Massachusetts in thirty-six years, and to cholera, which had destroyed only 2,000; but too little heed was given to scarlet fever, with its mortality of 37,000, and to typhoid fever, with its mortality of 45,000.—N. Y. Med. Jour.
THE CARE OF THE EYES.[8]
By Prof. David Webster, M.D.
SPECTACLES.
A vast amount of popular misapprehension and prejudice exists as to the use of spectacles. Many persons who need them object to wearing them for various reasons. Some fear that it will lead their friends to suspect that they are getting old. Others think it will cause them to be suspected of wishing to appear learned or cultured. Some persons do not want to begin to wear them lest, having acquired the habit, they may not be able to leave them off or to see well without them. Others again object to glasses only on account of their inconvenience. I have personally met with many of all these classes of persons, but I have frequently heard of another class that I have never met with, namely, those who do not need glasses, but who wear them just for effect and to attract attention. Now, the simple truth is that there are just two good reasons for wearing spectacles, and only two. One is that we may see better, the other is that our eyes may be relieved of strain. Often both these reasons are combined in the same case. Many children begin to be near-sighted after they have attended school a few years. They first find it out by observing that they cannot see letters or figures on the blackboard as far as the other children. They can use their eyes as much as they want to without fatigue or blurring, or smarting, or burning, or itching, or pain in the eyes, or headache. In short, they show no symptoms of eye strain. They simply do not see distant objects distinctly. Such children should be fitted with glasses at once that will enable them to see as well as others at a distance, and these glasses should be worn constantly. The child should be instructed to take them off only when necessary to wipe them or to wipe or bathe the eyes and on going to bed. The sooner the eyes get accustomed to them the less likely is the near-sightedness to increase. Moreover, the child who sees clearly only a few feet away from him loses a very important part of his education. Our eyes gather information for us when we are least thinking of it, by taking cognizance of the many objects that come within our field of vision just as our ears gather material for the proper development of our minds in listening to general conversation or to the sounds of nature and of busy life about us. It is the duty of every one to make the best possible use of the faculties the Creator has bestowed upon him. The near-sighted person who does not have his vision corrected by glasses fails in the performance of this duty.
[8] Continued from Supplement, No. 647, page 10342.
From a paper by David Webster. M.D., professor of ophthalmology in the New York Polyclinic and surgeon to the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital, New York.
Again, the time comes in the life of every one who is not near-sighted, and who lives to a good old age, when he cannot see near objects well without glasses. Between the ages of 40 and 50, the crystalline lenses of his eyes having hardened along with the other tissues of his body, he finds it impossible to focalize as he used to. He holds his book farther and farther away from his eyes, and finally he finds that he cannot read fine print at all, or without straining his eyes. Then he must accept the unpleasant fact that he is getting old-sighted, and if he wishes to use, and not abuse, his eyes, he must get glasses to take the place of his lost accommodation and with which he can read easily. Some persons who are near-sighted in one eye and far-sighted in the other never need glasses, but always do their reading and other near work with the near-sighted eye and their distant seeing with the far-sighted eye. I believe I read a long time ago, in an article by himself in the New York Ledger, that this was the case with the late Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. But the vast majority of persons who wear glasses, both for the distance and for the near, can see quite as well without them. They do not wear them in order to be able to see, but in order to have the strain removed from their eyes, and to be relieved from the many disagreeable symptoms, both direct and reflex, that result from eye strain.