IS THE PERCENTAGE OF MYOPIC EYES DIMINISHING?

Abstract

In my report of the examinations of the eyes of the schoolchildren in Philadelphia, published in 1881, it was shown that the increasing percentage of myopia in the schools as the pupils advanced in age and school progress, as was set forth by the statistics of many observers both in Europe and America, was due not so much to the want of hygienic precautions in the schools as to the existing congenital defects in the eyes of the children. Many examples, it is true, were presented showing the baneful influence of inadequately lighted schoolrooms and other faulty environments over the eyes of all young children, but it was obvious from their collated statistics that the crux of the matter lay in the congenital visual defects. The findings of the Philadelphia examinations were set forth in elaborate statistical tables, and graphically displayed in a series of percentage curves, the latter of which are here reproduced for reference (Charts 1, 2, 3