for a moment, claim that a practical optician
cannot give you a pair of glasses which will make you see--he does
nothing more than hand you a number of pairs of glasses and you select
the one pair which you think answers the purpose. How can anyone but a
medical man know that the impairment of vision does not arise from
diminished sensibility of the retina? If so, the glasses just
purchased, which may be comfortable for a time, may cause an
irreparable loss of vision. Every ophthalmic surgeon will tell you
that he has had a number of such cases. Do not be misguided by
purchasing cheap spectacles. Glasses advertised as having "remarkable
qualities" are always to be passed by. They have "remarkable
qualities;" they always leave the person wearing them worse at the end
of a few months. Whenever an eye finds relief in a shaded or colored
glass, something is going wrong with the interior of that eye. Seek
advice, but do not trust the eyes of yourself, much less those of your
children, in the hands of the opticians who advertise their
examinations free.

Such individuals should be brought before a tribunal and the matter
sifted as to whether the sense of sight is less to be taken care of
than if that same patient were ill with pneumonia and a druggist were
to prescribe remedies which might or might not aid this patient. If
one man must comply with the law, why should not the other? Our
medical colleges are lengthening the course of studies; the advances
in the various departments of science demand this. It is by the aid of
the ophthalmoscope that many obscure diseases are diagnosed, and while
it is impossible for every young man who obtains a diploma to become
thoroughly proficient in the use of this instrument, yet the eye shows
to him many conditions which guide him to the road of successful
treatment. Think of a case of optic neuritis--inflammation of the
optic nerve--going to an optician and fitting one set of glasses after
another until the patient suddenly discovers that blindness is
inevitable. Many individuals, and very intelligent ones at that, think
that so long as a glass makes them see, that is all they need. When we
know that scarcely two eyes are alike, we can at once feel that it is
very important that each eye should be properly adjusted for a glass;
by this we are sure of having comfort in reading and preserving
vision.

There is a very important defect in vision which should be detected as
early in life a