BETTER EYESIGHT

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PREVENTION AND CURE OF IMPERFECT SIGHT WITHOUT GLASSES

JANUARY, 1928

Eyestrain During Sleep

Many people complain that when they awaken in the morning, they are suffering from pain in their eyes or head. They often feel as weary as though they had been working hard all night long. Many of them do not recover from the pain and fatigue until after they have been up for an hour or longer. Their vision also may be found to be reduced to a very considerable degree. Some complain that they see illusions which are occasionally very slow in disappearing. One patient complained that the tiled floor of a bathroom had a very strange appearance; although the tiles were white, to him they appeared blue and red alternately.
A feeling of strain was always present and did not subside until the illusion had disappeared. It seemed as though the eyes were under a strain during sleep, because when the eyes were examined with the ophthalmoscope while the patient was asleep, a strain could readily be observed.
Sometimes, as in the case of many children, other parts of the body may be under a strain during sleep.
By an unconscious effort, the muscles of the face, arms and limbs may be distorted as may be muscles of different parts of the eyeball. In some cases, the strain produces accommodation or myopia, while in other cases, hypermetropia or astigmatism are produced by this unconscious effort. These eyes frequently were found to be normal during the day.
The treatment to prevent eyestrain during sleep is not always successful. Some patients obtain most relief by practicing the long swing one hundred times or more just before retiring and the same number of times in the morning immediately after awakening. Other patients find that palming for twenty minutes before retiring is a help, and frequently the palms are left in place with benefit after the patients have lost consciousness.

Glaucoma

By W. H. Bates, M.D.

Glaucoma is a serious disease of the eyes which some years ago was considered incurable when chronic. In most cases, the eyeball was usually too hard and this is the symptom which more than any other was the strongest evidence we had that the eye was suffering from glaucoma. The field of vision was contracted on the nasal side and the pupil was usually more or less dilated; the cornea was not as sensitive as the normal eye. Sometimes the anasthesia, or that condition in which the cornea is not sensitive to the touch of a blunt pointed instrument, was quite marked. One characteristic symptom was the apparent appearance of colors around the flame of a candle or some other similar light.
Glaucoma is a disease of adult life and seldom occurs in children. Its uncertainty is unusual. For example, a person with normal eyes and normal sight may retire feeling perfectly comfortable. Sometime in the middle of the night, he may be awakened by a very intense pain, with total permanent blindness in both eyes from glaucoma. In a limited number of cases, pain may be absent, although the vision may be partially lowered. The sudden onset may not occur, but one or both eyes may slowly, without pain, after a long time, a year or longer, become totally blind.
In the American Encyclopedia of Ophthalmology, the article on glaucoma consists of 170 pages of solid type, describing facts connected with the symptoms, cause and treatment of glaucoma. These facts are so numerous that the writer did not have to repeat himself. He emphasized how little ophthalmologists actually knew about glaucoma. It is evident that many theories cannot all be true.
One authority claimed that the cause of glaucoma was connected with a loss of the iris angle (that part of the eye which is located at the outer part of the iris), when a formation of new tissue, resembling scar tissue, formed in the iris angle and acted as a sort of plug preventing the proper circulation of fluids of the eyeball, when there was less fluid in the front part of the eyeball than is found in the front part of the normal eye. Many cases were benefited by an iredectome, an operation in which a portion of the iris is removed. This theory went the way of some of the others when numerous exceptions were observed.
Another authority claimed that dilation of the pupil was an important factor in the cause of glaucoma. However, many cases were found in which the pupil was contracted as much, and in many cases more, than in the normal eye.
The results of the various methods of treatment which were suggested and practiced have been so disappointing, that we hesitate to foretell what may happen after any of them have been practiced.
It was a very welcome discovery made by my assistant, Ms. Lierman, that the relief of eyestrain always lessens tension, relieves pain and improves the vision. The discovery that relaxation methods cured glaucoma suggested that the cause was due to eyestrain. Experimental work proved this to be true. All methods of treatment which promote relaxation always benefit glaucoma. When the vision is good, a stare or strain or an effort made to see, brings on an attack of glaucoma. It is a difficult thing consciously to produce glaucoma by an effort to see. It is much easier to relax and benefit glaucoma. The writer has always felt great satisfaction in convincing patients that in order to have glaucoma and blindness, they had to go to a lot of trouble, work hard, and strain in order to produce it, but to benefit glaucoma was easy and required no effort whatever.

Treatment

By seeing one part of a letter best and all the rest of the letter not so well (central fixation), the letters of the Snellen test card appear improved to the maximum. Sometimes one has trouble in imagining central fixation of all the letters. On a card at fifteen feet, a patient with glaucoma could not imagine the letter “F” by central fixation, but the figure “6” of the same size and at the same distance was imagined by central fixation quite readily. The patient became able to imagine a period on the top of the figure “6” and the rest of the letter appeared worse. Usually, however, when looking at the letter “F,” a period could not be imagined on any part of it. Sometimes, however, after the figure “6” was seen by central fixation, the patient could, by alternately shifting from the “6” to the “F,” imagine the letter also, by central fixation. I might say that there were times when the figure “6” was an optimum and the letter “F” a pessimum. Then, there were other occasions when the figure “6” was not an optimum and the symptoms of glaucoma were variable, changing, increasing, and diminishing. It is well to remember this truth, because when the patient found which letter was an optimum, or could be seen by central fixation, he was enabled to improve his vision for other letters, together with simultaneous improvement in the glaucoma.
Some of the best methods of producing relaxation are the practice of the long swing, the variable swing, the sway, palming and sun treatment. There are some people who cannot practice a certain swing correctly until after weeks of instruction. They are full of excuses and are quite ready to find fault with the method rather than with their own lack of practicing properly.
(The above mentioned methods have been described from time to time in previous issues of the magazine.)
Glaucoma may be produced solely by the memory of imperfect sight. If a person with normal eyes and normal vision presses lightly on the eyeballs through the closed eyelids and remembers or imagines a letter “O” with a gray, blurred outline very imperfect, the eyeball can be felt to increase in hardness. When the patient remembers a letter “O” perfectly, the hardness of the eyeball disappears and the eyes become normal as they were before. These experiments are offered as proof that the memory of imperfect sight is a strain which may produce glaucoma, and the memory of perfect sight a relaxation, which will relieve glaucoma. When the eye shifts, moves and uses central fixation the eye has normal softness and pressure.
One patient with acute glaucoma together with cataract could not distinguish 10/200, or the large “C” at the top of the Snellen test card. By looking at a light off to one side and flashing 10/200 alternately, the vision improved almost immediately to 10/30. She was able to remember the light when regarding the Snellen test card for a few seconds only. By alternately looking at the light and regarding the Snellen test card, her memory for the light improved, while her memory for the letters of the Snellen test card also improved.
She seemed to need supervision, because when practicing by herself, she did not flash the letters or look at them for a moment only. She stared at the light and the Snellen test card and instead of her vision improving, it became worse and it required encouragement to induce the patient to flash letters or other objects.
The memory was also improved by the practice of central fixation. When she looked at the first letter of a line of letters (placed in the center of the visual field) on the Snellen test card, she saw the other letters on the same line (in the peripheral field) not so well; the memory of letters and other objects seen by central fixation became very much better in a short time. The patient’s memory was also improved by the imagination of the halos, that is, when she regarded a white center of a letter “O” and imagined that she saw it whiter than the rest of the card, her memory and the halos also improved.

Case Reports

CASE ONE

A woman, fifty years of age, was suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, incipient cataract and chronic glaucoma. After daily treatment for six months, the vision was improved from 10/200 to normal. Palming, shifting and swinging gave the best results. She acquired the habit of imagining stationary objects to be constantly moving. The objects in her rooms, the furniture, window shades, the rugs, the ceiling, in fact all stationary objects seen could be imagined to be moving whenever she moved her head and eyes. Alternately looking at the sun and stationary objects in the house improved her sight. When she was out of doors, she imagined the sidewalk to be coming towards her, or if she looked to one side, that the buildings or other objects were moving in the opposite direction. (Oppositional Movement)
Another method which helped her was to stand before a window and imagine the curtain cord to be moving in the opposite direction as she swayed her body from side to side, while a building in the distance appeared to be moving in the same direction as the movement of her body.

Oppositional Movement = When moving the eyes, head, body left, right, up, down, any direction: close objects appear to move in the opposite direction, distant objects appear to move in the same direction the eyes, head, body move to and close and distant objects appear to move against eachother in opposite directions.
Distant objects actually appear to move opposite but move so slow in the opposite direction that they appear to move in the same direction the eyes, head, body are moving to. The function of oppositional movement helps the brain determine depth, distance, placement, space of objects at different distances, dimension, 3-D vision, binocular vision, fusion, ability to calculate the time it takes to travel to, from a object… and other functions of the brain, body, visual system. (Opposite movement of distant objects can be seen when looking at-shifting on the object with only a small head movement with the eyes no longer than the shift of the eyes.) If you increase the head movement, as when doing the sway or the long swing, then the distant object will appear to move with the eyes.)  

It was very interesting to observe that the pigment spots of the retinitis pigmentosa were disappearing from view; the symptoms of glaucoma also disappeared gradually. When she remembered perfect sight, one could, with the ophthalmoscope, see the cataract immediately becoming less. When she remembered imperfect sight, the cataract became very opaque. Besides obtaining normal sight for the distance, she became able to read diamond type at six inches without glasses.
In the beginning of the treatment, the left eye was the better eye. However, the left eye was treated for more than six months before normal vision was obtained, while the vision of the right eye improved from 10/200 to 20/20 after only one week of treatment.
This patient was very grateful for the benefit she received and could not understand why many of the ophthalmologists whom she had consulted previously did not refer her to me. Her constant question was: “If these other doctors could not cure me, why did they not send me to the doctor who could?”

CASE TWO

A Case Of Absolute Glaucoma

By Emily C. Lierman

This article contains descriptions, directions for a variety of Bates Treatments

A man, aged 68, with absolute glaucoma was brought to me by his physician, who was quite sure that the Bates Method could do nothing to restore his sight. This man had had three operations on both eyes; the first operation was performed in the year 1924. He had no perception of light in the right eye and could see but very little with his left eye, not more than 1/200. The doctor who brought him was the most skeptical person I have ever come in contact with. His manner in regard to the method was almost insulting, and I resented his attitude very much. I had a conversation with him over the telephone previous to the appointment which was made with his patient. He was to give me an hour with this man, and if at the end of that time I could improve the patient’s sight, even a particle, he would believe that Dr. Bates was right when he claimed that glaucoma was curable by his method.
I never felt more determined in my life to do the best that was in me for this patient. Before the hour of his appointment, I sent him my book, “Stories from the Clinic” by special messenger to him and asked him to read what I had written about the relief of strain in glaucoma.
When the doctor entered my office with his patient, one could see by his face that he was ready to prove that his patient would receive no benefit in his sight. I was in a fighting mood myself and my eyes, I feel sure, told him of my determination to prove that he was wrong and I was right. I informed the doctor immediately that even though his patient was a wealthy man, I would not accept a fee at this time, but if the patient received further treatment from me or from Dr. Bates, he would have to pay a bonus in advance besides the regular fee, for the hard work which would be before us. As I look back upon that day and hour which I spent with his patient, I realize how hard I worked.
The right eye, as I have said, had no sight at all because the retina was almost destroyed and there were other complications caused by the operations. Because of this, it was not necessary for my patient to cover his right eye while the left eye was being tested.
I produced the white test card with black letters, as the patient sat by a window with the sunlight shining on the whole card. I watched to see what effect the strong light reflected on the card would produce. Immediately the patient drew back, as if the strong light hurt his sight. I was pleased to note this, as I knew then that the patient was sensitive to the strong light which, of course, was in my favor, because sun treatment would overcome this sensitiveness and probably improve the vision. The doctor made no comment. At one foot from his eyes, the patient could flash the 2 (200 line) letter “C” as he moved the card slowly from left to right before his eyes. More than that, he could not see without causing a great deal of effort. Then I changed the card and replaced it with the black test card with white letters, placing the card in his hand as I had the white card. I directed the patient to keep the card moving slowly from side to side and to blink as he moved the card. By doing this, he flashed the 100 line letters, one at a time. Occasionally, I glanced at the doctor’s face to see whether he was pleased or not. He might have been a sphinx for the lack of interest which he showed.
My next plan was to have the patient palm, which I told him how to do, and while he was palming, I asked him to tell me what interests he had in life. He said he was a banker, so I advised him to remember figures on bank notes as well as he could; also to remember other things in regard to the work which he is most interested in. I avoided any unpleasant conversation regarding his eye trouble, which he unconsciously referred to from time to time.
I explained to him that his poor sight worried him more than he realized, but if he believed in what I was trying to do for him, he would not feel so hopeless in time to come. Jokingly, and half in earnest, I remarked, “You must have a better attitude of mind than your doctor has at the present time,” which brought for the first time a smile to the face of the doctor. The patient said he was willing to believe that I could help him and I know that he meant it.
While the patient was palming, I placed the large black test card with white letters upon a test-card stand, which I arranged five feet from where the patient was sitting, and in an ordinary light. Again I looked at the doctor, but he made no sign of being in doubt or otherwise. This would have been discouraging, I know, to most of our students, but I have had so much experience with people like him, that I paid no more attention to him than if he were not in the room. It was the only way for me to keep from either weeping or gnashing my teeth.
After the patient had palmed for more than ten minutes and had removed his hands from his eyes, I asked him to stand. As I held both his arms at the elbow, I asked him to sway from side to side with me. Of his own accord the patient remarked, with a smile, how relaxing it was to sway his body, and that he enjoyed doing it. At first he did not recognize the card where I had placed it, and I myself did not mention to him what I had done while he was palming. I told him that he was to keep up the swing of his body until he discovered the test card and was able to read some of the letters. I also informed him that he was not to try hard to see any letter, but to keep up the sway.
Anyone interested in our work can imagine how happy I was to hear him say, “I think the middle letter of the third line is an ‘O’.” Before I allowed him to go any further, I told him to sit down again and palm. I felt that the palming had had as much to do with the improvement in his sight as did the swinging of his body. While the patient was palming, I told him to remember anything which was pleasant, that it did not matter much what it was. Some patients enjoy remembering a sunset, or a white cloud in a blue sky. I reminded him of these things and also told him it was necessary for him to shift from one thing to another and not to concentrate on any one thing.
While he palmed, he said that he had had a bad habit for years of concentrating or trying to concentrate, which he thought was beneficial, but now realized that this produced more strain and discomfort. It was nice to hear the patient explain these little things to me, because it proved to the doctor who brought him that he was anxious to help me in what I was trying to do for him. This time the patient palmed for about fifteen minutes and then we started the standing sway of the body, having him blink regularly as he did before. This time, he read every letter of the 5 line (also called 50 line on other eyecharts), seeing one letter at a time and looking away quickly to avoid staring. A great feeling of satisfaction came over me as I saw that the doctor was watching the patient closely. Nothing was said, however, because we both felt the need of silence at this time.
The patient began to strain unconsciously to read the next line of letters, but I avoided having him read any further until he had again rested his eyes by palming. This time it was not necessary for me to again remind him to use his memory, for he immediately mentioned how white the letters looked on the black background when he did not look at the card longer than a fraction of a second: I said that it was a good thing for him to alternately remember the black margin of the card and then remember the white letters as he saw them, or if he possibly could, without an effort, to imagine the letters whiter than he really saw them. After he had rested his eyes in this way for ten minutes or longer, I placed him in the sun, and with my sun-glass I focused the strong rays on his closed eyelids. Some patients draw away when they first receive the sun treatment, but this patient enjoyed the strong light of the sun from the start, which made it easier for me to treat him.
After the sun treatment, he again read the test card at the same distance, and this time, he read all of the 3 line. (30 line) The patient turned to me and thanked me for my efforts and for what I had done for him. He also told me that he would try to do without the strong magnifying glass which he had been using for a few years to help him in his work. l explained how dangerous it was for him to continue the use of the magnifying glass even though it helped him to see things better at the time. As this patient had never heard of the Bates Method before, I am not sure that he realized the importance of what I explained to him. I really helped him and improved his vision from 1/200 to 1/6 of normal in one hour’s time under unfavorable conditions, for which he was grateful.
As the time for the treatment was over, I had to let the patient go, but I had satisfied the skeptical doctor who not only fought me with his mind, but also tried to prove to me that Dr. Bates’ statements were false when he claimed to relieve tension in glaucoma and also improve the sight when other methods had failed.
I never saw this patient again, because he lived a great distance from my office, but I feel sure that the doctor is no longer skeptical, but is at this time helping others in the cure of imperfect sight without glasses.

Questions And Answers

Q - I have a high degree of myopia. Approximately how long will it take to obtain a cure by your method?
A. - It is impossible to say, as people vary so in their response to the treatment.
        Few minutes, hour, day, week, month, year - depending on the individuals type/amount of strain, understanding and correct use of the Bates Method.

Q - How often should one with imperfect sight palm during the day and for how long?
A - Palming should be done as often as possible during the day, ten times at least, for five, ten, fifteen, minutes or longer at a time. Some people obtain more benefit from short periods than from longer periods.

Q - Am forty-nine years of age and have had to wear glasses for five years, due to gradual weakening of the eyes. Is this curable?
A - Old-age sight is curable, and you can discard your glasses by following the methods as outlined in the book, “Perfect Sight Without Glasses.”

Q - If one’s arms become tired while palming, will a black silk handkerchief covering the eyes produce the same amount of relaxation one gets from palming?
A - No. Palming is the best method for relaxation and improvement in vision. When tired of palming, the hands can be removed and the eyes kept closed until one feels relaxed.

Q - Can the vision be improved without glasses after the lens has been removed for cataract?
A - Yes.

Q - Can squint (crossed, wandering eyes) be cured by treatment without glasses after an eye muscle operation proved unsuccessful? Does age make any difference?
A - Yes. Age does not make a difference.

Q - Will it still be necessary to continue practicing the method of swinging and shifting after my eyes are cured?
A – No. When you are cured of eyestrain you will not be conscious of your eyes. However, if you strain them, you will know what to do to relieve the strain.

Q – Is it a strain to the eyes to read while riding on a train?
A – No, if there is no discomfort. It is a good thing to look out of the window and see the scenery moving in the opposite direction to that in which you are going, and then continue to read.
(Oppositional movement)

Q – What causes and cures abnormal watering of the eyes?
A – Strain produces watering of the eye. Relaxation obtained by palming and swinging will cure this trouble.
       Avoid sunglasses, tinted, colored, UV blocking lenses, eyeglasses, contact lenses.