Foreword - This book on the correction of imperfect sight, with­out the use of glasses, is based on the Bates method, for which such yeoman service has been performed by Mrs. Margaret Darst Corbett. The author claims no originality for the principles laid down in the fol­lowing pages. His own contribution lies in the specific drills which he has worked out and found to be suc­cessful in his own practice and in his emphasis on the mental rather than the physical elements in re-educat­ing the eyes for normal use

1. The Problem - The most encouraging fact about your eyes is that the less effort you make to see the better you can see. It is difficult for people with imperfect sight to believe that perfect sight requires no effort; indeed, any effort to improve the sight makes it worse. Curiously enough, we have long known that before we can swim or dance, play tennis or golf, or master a musical instrument, our muscles must be relaxed.

2. The Cause - While this book does not propose to deal in physio­logical technicalities, which can be found in any text­book on ophthalmology, it may be helpful to summarize briefly the structure of the eye.

The eyeball is embedded in fat and fibrous tissue and lodged in bony sockets called orbits. It is held in place and rotated by means of six extrinsic muscles, attached to the posterior bony wall of the socket; at the anterior pole, they are inserted into the eye­ball

3. Your Eyes - The eyes are the organ through which we see, just as the lungs are the organ through which air is received into the body. Normal sight is an effortless and in­voluntary process. Vision is there to be received through relaxed eyes. It is as free as the air. When we catch cold and the lungs become tense, we struggle for breath. When vision is defective the eyes become tense and we struggle to see. The greater the struggle, in either case, the more difficult it becomes to breathe or see.

4. Bed - The ultimate purpose of every exercise and every tech­nique in this book is to provide relaxation, which, starting in the mind, releases the nerve tension and thus relaxes the muscular strain. When that has been accomplished, the eye difficulties are corrected.

There is nothing so maddening to a tense person as the cheerful advice, "Go home and relax."

5. Relieving Eyestrain - The first, and inevitable, question which everyone asks is, "How long will it take before my vision improves?" As the answer to this question depends on a number of factors—the seriousness of your eye condition, your ability to acquire complete relaxation and mental con­trol, the steadiness with which you do your exercises —no definite period of time can be set. Every visual instructor has had cases in which an hour was sufficient to correct the visual defect, and cases in which months of patient effort were required to get the same result.

6. Swinging - In the last chapter we discussed the routine that is tc be followed in relaxing the eyes.

1. Sunning.
   
2. Palming for ten minutes.

The next step is the Long Swing, which should be practiced for five minutes before going to bed at night, for five minutes on arising in the morning, and as the third step in relaxing at the time you do your eye exercises.

7. Short Swing - The fourth step in our relaxing technique is the Short Swing.

Here we are going to get to work on the back of the neck where nearly all nervous people, and practically everyone with eyestrain, suffers from pain, tightness and discomfort.

The Short Swing, properly practiced, will not only relax the eyes and the neck but it will relieve the tense muscles around the eyes and help to free you from headache and neuralgia.

8. Point of Vision - Let us consider your position. How are your eyes behaving? What it your own particular difficulty? You have encountered some difficulty in seeing or you would not be reading this book. When you take off your glasses and look at the person across from you, does his face appear distorted, fuzzy, or blurred? Do you see it double? When you pick up the telephone book is it difficult to see the numbers clearly? Do you squint and try to force your balking eyes to see until you are half-blind with headache? Are the muscles of your face tense, and are there wrinkles or dark circles under your eyes? Do you have difficulty in seeing at the near point or at the far point?

9. Memory - In an earlier chapter we pointed out the fact that the functioning of the eye in many respects resembles that of a camera. A picture is snapped on a film, we said, but we do not see it until the film has been developed. A picture is flashed on the retina of the eye but we do not see it as a picture until the mind interprets it.

10. Near+Far Sighted - At this point, we should answer the question that has probably arisen in your mind.

"I am near-sighted," you say, "and another reader of this book is far-sighted. Still another may suffer from astigmatism or presbyopia. We all have different difficulties. Are we all to do the same drills?"

11. Lexicon - In earlier chapters we have described the techniques for inducing relaxation that is both physical and men­tal, and encouraging natural shifting of the eyes.

Once relaxation has been achieved, we must start to build vision by helping to restore the function of accommodation—that is, the ability to focus at vari­ous distances—and to rebuild central fixation.

12. Squint - Strabismus, or cross-eyes, is caused by an unequal pull on the muscles of the eyeball so that the two eyes are not directed toward the same point at the same time. This lack of fusion causes many distressing phys­ical conditions, such as insomnia, intense fatigue, even nausea and gastric disturbances. It is usually accom­panied by an intense sensation of sleepiness when one attempts to read.

13. Eye Conditions - Cataract is not, as many people seem to believe, a growth that forms on the eye. It is a condition in which the crystalline lens itself becomes opaque so that no light can pass through it and reach the retina.

The crystalline lens is made up of many concen­tric layers. Between them are small lymph channels through which a secretion passes into the substance of the lens. When this secretion is not able to flow freely, because of a compression caused by tension, the lens becomes dry and, in time, opaque

14. How to Read - Learning to read without glasses requires the substi­tution of good reading habits for bad ones. Practically everyone, as he grows older, finds it difficult to read unless he has kept the eye muscles flexible. If he has depended upon glasses, it seems troublesome at first to learn new techniques of reading.

There is a great reward in persisting in your practice of the new techniques as it will enable you in the long run to read without strain, headache, fatigue, or that blurring and watering of the eyes which is so annoying.

15. Good Eyes - Up to this point, we have been discussing defective vision from a standpoint of correction. Now we come to what is perhaps the most valuable factor in the whole theory of visual education—the prevention of eye de­fects, a chapter which we trust will be of special interest to parents.

At what age should you begin to watch out for eye troubles in your children and to prevent them? As faulty vision grows out of faulty habits, you must be alert to see that these habits have no opportunity to take root.

16. Seeing - Your eyes will give you the kind of vision you demand of them—no more and no less. It is not enough to prac­tice exercises for a few minutes a day and then revert to bad habits for the rest of the time. You must make proper seeing habits an intrinsic part of everything you do, and as the habits become routine and subconscious you will reap the reward in improved vision, in re­laxed tension, in increased clarity of mental function­ing and contro

17. A Will = A Way - In concluding this book, I would like to sum up the main points for your ready reference.

Visual re-education is based on the Bates method of correcting vision. Orthodox ophthalmologists declare that, while lenses will correct refractive errors, the eye, unlike every other part of the body, cannot be cured nor can its malfunctioning be prevented.

18. Scoffers - Although the Bates method for the re-education of the eyes and the improvement of vision without the use of glasses has been in wide use for over a genera­tion, and has improved the vision of tens of thousands of people, it is still an object of attack by orthodox ophthalmologists.

As a rule, these attacks are made with no real un­derstanding of the method, with no attempt to in­vestigate its techniques or its effects. Too often, hoots of laughter are raised over passages taken at random and out of context from Dr. Bates' own book on the subject.

THE END

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