Methods That Have Succeeded
Lelouch Lamperouge
Stories from the Clinic
16: Methods That Have Succeeded
By Emily C. Lierman
——-
The patients who come to our clinic do wonderful things,
especially the school children. We can give each one of them, as a
rule, only about five minutes of our time, and yet they are able to
carry out the instructions given to them at home, and to get results.
This is a great tribute to their patience and intelligence.
Most of the children, and of the grown people as well, are helped
by palming, and some wonderful cures have been obtained by this means
alone. In my first story for this magazine I told about a little
Italian boy named Joey whose left eye had been so injured in an
automobile accident that he had only light perception left. It was
some time before I could get him to palm regularly, but as soon as he
became willing to do it many times a day his sight began to improve
rapidly, and he is now completely cured.
There are some patients, however, who cannot or will not palm. One
of these was a little colored girl, with corkscrew curls, for all the
world like Topsy. She had been sent to the clinic because she could
not see the writing on the blackboard, and the school nurse told me
later that she was very unruly and a great trial to her teacher. She
was something of a trial to me too at first, for I could not get her
to palm for a moment, and did not know what to do with her. Then I
discovered that she had a wonderful memory when she chose to use it,
and I resolved to treat her by the aid of this faculty. I was able to
improve her sight considerably, and the very next day her teacher
noticed such a change in her behavior that on the next clinic day the
school nurse came with her to see what I had done to her. I then asked
her to remember, with closed eyes, a letter on the test card gray
instead of black. She could not stand still a minute while she did so,
and when she opened her eyes there was no improvement in her vision.
Then I asked her to imagine the blue beads she had around her neck.
She did so for five minutes, standing perfectly still all the time,
and when she opened her eyes she read an extra line on the test card.
I had her do this again, and again she read an extra line. The nurse
was thrilled by this demonstration of the fact that perfect memory
improves the sight and relieves nervousness.
Recently a poor young man called at our magazine office and asked
if Dr. Bates had written a book about the treatment of the eyes. When
told that there was such a book, he bought it and also subscribed for
the magazine. His sister was being treated at the clinic, he said, and
he wished to take off his glasses as she had done. Later he came to
the clinic, as he lives in the hospital district. I found that he
could not read newspaper print without his glasses, while his distant
vision was 12/70, both eyes. This was about six months ago. He now
reads diamond type, and last week his sister asked Dr. Bates if he had
finer print, as her brother found the diamond type so easy that he
wanted something smaller. Dr. Bates gave her a page from a
photographic reduction of the Bible, and he reads this also without
any trouble. The methods he used were swinging and flashing, together
with palming.
The influence of this cure has been extensive and is still going
on. The patient loaned the book to a myopic youth in his office, and
by means of palming he was able to improve his sight so that now he
dispenses with glasses for long periods. An elderly man in the same
office thought the palming a very absurd practice, but, having
borrowed the book, in his turn, he started shifting and flashing at
lunch time, just to pass the time. He now does much of his work
without glasses.
A Jewish mother came to the clinic recently with her little girl
of eight, and said the child must have glasses. The school nurse had
said so. I replied that I was very sorry indeed, but that Dr. Bates
did not fit glasses, and she would have to call some other day and see
the doctor who did so. She was about to leave the room when I
suggested that I should test the child's sight. I felt sorry for the
little girl, because she was very pretty, except for her eyes, which
were partly closed most of the time.
"I don't like to wear glasses," she said. "Please help me so that
I won't have to wear them."
The mother seemed bewildered at first, and then she said, in a
burst of confidence:
"You know, nurse, if der glasses was for notthink, I should vorry.
But all der time money, money fer glasses, when all der time she
breaks dem."
I told the poor mother not to worry, because her child could be
cured so that she would not need glasses if she would do what I told
her to do.
"Sure, sure," she replied. "Det's all right, lady. You fix her
eyes, yes? Ven ve don't buy glasses ve got more money to buy someding
for der stomach, yes?"
An Irish woman was standing by, and she just roared with laughter.
I had to use some tact to keep peace in the room, and I thought it
best to usher the Irish woman outside until I had treated the little
girl, who turned out to be a very interesting patient. We have some
bright children in out clinic, and I am proud of them; but this dear
little girl beat them all. She did such a wonderful thing that Dr.
Bates was thrilled. Jennie had never seen the test card before, and
after palming was able to read the thirty line at fifteen feet. Below
this the card was a blank to her. I asked her to follow my finger
while, with very rapid movement, I pointed to the large letter at the
top and so on down to the ten line. I now asked her to palm, and,
pointing to the last letter on the ten line, which was an F, and quite
small, I asked her if she could remember some letter her teacher had
written on the blackboard that day. She replied:
"Yes, I can imagine I see the letter O, a white O."
"Keep your eyes closed," I said, "and imagine that the letter I am
pointing at has a curved top. Can you still imagine the O?"
"No," she said, "I can't imagine anything now."
"Can you imagine it is open, or straight at the top?" I asked.
She became quite excited and said: "If I imagine it has a straight
top I can still remember the white O."
"Fine," I said. "Can you imagine it has a straight line at the
bottom?"
"No," she said, "if I do that I lose the O. I can imagine it's
open much better."
"Good," I said. "It is open. Now imagine it is open or curved to
the left."
"I lose the O," she said, "if I imagine the left side open or
curved. I think it's an F, nurse."
And when she opened her eyes she saw it plainly. The fact was,
although she had been unable to see this letter consciously, she had
unconsciously seen it for a fraction of a second and could not imagine
it to be other than it was without a strain that caused her to lose
control of her memory. And when she imagined it to be what it was she
relaxed so that when she opened her eyes she was able to see it.
A little later a school nurse brought us a child who was giving
her teacher a lot of trouble because she could not remember anything,
and it was thought glasses might help her. She was very nervous,
frowned terribly, and at twelve feet the letters on the bottom line of
the test card were only black spots to her. As I could not get her to
palm, I asked her to look at a letter on the bottom line, and with
closed eyes imagine it had a straight top. She could not do this, and
said she could imagine it curved better. Then she found she could
imagine two other sides curved and one open, and when she opened her
eyes she saw the letter, a C, distinctly, and had stopped frowning. By
the same method she became able to read all the letters on the bottom
line, demonstrating that her imperfect memory had been due to
eyestrain. She had unconsciously seen the letters, but the eyestrain
had suppressed the memory of them. With her eyes closed the strain was
relaxed, and she became able to remember, or imagine, them.
——-
Fundamentals of Treatment
Better Eyesight
A monthly magazine devoted to the prevention and cure of imperfect
sight without glasses
Copyright, 1921, by the Central Fixation Publishing Company
Editor—W. H. Bates, M.D.
Publisher—Central Fixation Publishing Co.
$2.00 per year, 20 cents per copy
300 Madison Avenue, New York, N. Y.
Vol. IV - June, 1921 - No. 6
——-
[...]
Otis
Those who fail to learn the lessons of history -- are doomed to repeat
the mistakes of the past!
http://www.central-fixation.com/bates-medical-articles/myopia-prevention-teachers.php
Enjoy,
On Nov 19, 12:56 pm, Lelouch Lamperouge <misa...@googlemail.com>
wrote:
Roy Harvey (SQL Server MVP)
<otis...@embarqmail.com> wrote:
>
>Those who fail to learn the lessons of history -- are doomed to repeat
>the mistakes of the past!
At least you finally admit you are describing the mistakes of the
past. It would help if you put that explicitly at the top of every
message.
Otis
Sure. The analogy is good. There is "intellectual blindness" -- that
follows from "gong along with the "tradition of practice".
Even the medical doctors (thoughtul) recognize the problems of falling
into the habit of thining that the "status quo" IS SCIENCE.
They could not recognize the fact of "germs" and their own
degenerative involvement in the problem. Here is the discussion by a
medical doctor:
A REVIEW OF THE PAST APPROACH
We should all thoughtfully evaluate the unfortunate effect of using an
immediate and easy fix for the problem of nearsightedness. This
situation of a self-perpetuating mistake (produced by public need and
attitude) is sometimes recognized by the students of medicine. Dr.
Perri Klass said it this way in VITAL SIGNS:
"... Sometimes the awesome weight of medical knowledge is totally off
the beam. You have to practice medicine with that in mind, with the
knowledge that a hundred years or so along the road, they'll be
telling stories about the medical theories of today to get a laugh of
the medical students of 2085..."
And about medicines' confidence in its routines:
"... Or something so basic, so taken for granted, that no one has
gotten around to questioning it. Whatever it is, probably the medical
profession is collectively doing something really dumb and really
damaging, and doing it with complete good will and typical medical
self-confidence."
This applies to vision. The demand for negative lens use comes partly
from the public's demand for an instant solution, (and corresponding
reluctance to properly use a plus lens) and not from a scientific
assessment of the behavior characteristic of the normal eye.
==========
The "minus" was put into use by Johan Kepler in 1610 -- for the
obvious reason that it worked instantly.
The "practice" has not changed since then.
Enjoy,
On Nov 19, 11:14 pm, "Roy Harvey (SQL Server MVP)"
<roy_har...@snet.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:52:35 -0800 (PST), Otis
>
Mike Tyner
"Otis" <otis...@embarqmail.com> wrote
> Sure. The analogy is good. There is "intellectual blindness" -- that
> follows from "gong along with the "tradition of practice".
So, your example of good science is W. H. Bates?
-MT
Otis
Prevention is the second-opinion.
Enjoy,
On Nov 20, 6:52 am, "Mike Tyner" <mty...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> "Otis" <otisbr...@embarqmail.com> wrote
Mike Tyner
"Otis" <otis...@embarqmail.com> wrote
> Prevention is the second-opinion.
And the mome raths outgrabe.
-MT