Some Results of Concentration
Lelouch Lamperouge
——
Stories from the Clinic
17: Some Results of Concentration
By Emily C. Lierman
——
Almost all the patients who come to us at the clinic, especially
adults, think it necessary to concentrate in order to see better. They
think concentration part of our method of treatment, and until they
learn better I cannot make any progress with them.
A young girl about eighteen or nineteen years of age came one day
recently, holding her glasses in her hand and anxiously waiting to be
treated. She told me she had worn glasses for seven years, and that
she had consulted several oculists and opticians without getting any
relief from the pain in her eyes. With her glasses she read 15/20, and
without them 15/50, both eyes. When she closed her eyes I noticed a
twitching of her eyelids. She was told to open her eyes and look at a
letter on the test card, then to close them and remember the blackness
of the letter, thinking first of the bottom and then of the top,
alternately. When a few minutes later she removed her hands from her
eyes she could not see the letter which she had seen before. I
wondered why her sight did not improve, but I understood when she
said:
"I did what you asked me to do. You told me to remember the letter
O, and I held on to it and tried hard not to remember anything else.
But now my pain is worse than before."
"You did not understand me," I said. "I did not ask you to hold on
to the letter O, I asked you to remember the blackness of it, and see
or imagine or part best at a time."
She tried it again, covering her eyes with her hands, and this
time I said to her:
"Remember the letter O as you saw it, but first remember the top
best. Now what happens to the bottom?"
"It fades from black to gray," she said.
"Now remember the bottom blacker than the top."
"The same thing happens to the top," she said. "It fades to gray
color." And then she added: "Please let me keep doing this for a
little while, it seems to take my pain away."
After five minutes or so I had to ask her to remove her hands from
her eyes, as I could not spend any more time with her, and I wanted to
know if I had helped her. As she looked at the card again she saw the
O very plainly, and also read two more lines, the forty and the
thirty. The twitching of her eyelids had ceased, and she was able to
smile. The patient is still coming, and is now able to to read most of
the ten line at fifteen feet. She is also able to read some of the
letters in a paragraph of diamond type at eight inches from her eyes;
but when I hold the type at six inches, and ask her to fix her eyes on
one corner of the card and stare at it, the whole surface becomes a
blank and the pain in her head and eyes comes back.
One day a little mother, imported from Ireland, sure enough, came
with her little boy of eleven, who was suffering terrible pain. Dr.
Bates and I were not very busy at that moment, which was something
quite unusual, and we both listened together to her story, the gist of
which was:
"The school nurse sis me biy needs glasses. 'Tis truble he's
havin' wid his eyes."
The boy all the while kept his eyes covered with a white cloth,
and at first glance I thought he was crying, because the part of his
face that I was able to see was much flushed. Dr. Bates asked me to
see what I could do for him, and his mother began to talk again.
"Oi haven't any time to be foolin' round here, ma'am," she
informed me. "Oi got to get back to me washin'. It's glasses he needs,
ma'am."
When she finally stopped for want of breath, I said:
"Now wouldn't it be fine and dandy to cure him so that he wouldn't
need glasses?"
As I said this down came the cloth from the boy's eyes. He was
interested and returned my smile.
"Just you leave him to me and I will cure him," I said to his
mother. "And never mind leaving your work for him again. He can come
here by himself."
"Sure, ma'am, is it dreamin' ye are, or is it a bit of blarney yer
given' me?" she inquired.
"No," I said, "it isn't dreaming or blarney. Be a good mother and
just watch your boy and see what happens."
I tested the boy's sight with the Snellen test card and found that
his vision was 12/40 with each eye. Then I gave him a stool and showed
him how to palm. Some minutes afterwards I told him to remove his
hands from his eyes and look at the card. He stared at if as if some
wild animal were after him. I discovered that his mother was
threatening him, talking to him in a low tone. Evidently she thought
she would please me by forcing him to do what I wished. By this time I
knew that the boy was afraid of his mother, and I quietly invited her
to take a nice, comfortable seat outside the room. The boy informed me
that his name was Joe, and as I smoothed his hair and gave him a few
pats the most affectionate look came into his eyes. Then we got down
to business again. I told him to palm and reminded him of a baseball.
"Imagine you are throwing the ball," I said. "Now imagine that you
are catching it. Now look at the card."
He smiled when he saw the letters come out blacker and more
distinct than before. The redness of his face, which at first I
thought was from fever, left him, and his eyes, which were Irish blue,
were clear and wide open. He read the thirty-line at twelve feet and
part of the twenty-line, which I thought was doing well for the first
visit. Now it occurred to me to see what would happen if he
concentrated, or stared. I told him to look at the first letter on the
forty-line, a Z, and keep his mind fixed on it no matter what
happened. As he did this he began to frown, his forehead became
wrinkled and his face became red again.
"I don't like to do that, nurse," he said. "All the other letters
disappear and my head hurts."
I told him to palm again and remember the letter Z, thinking first
of the top, then of the bottom. When he looked at the card again he
saw the letters clearly once more, and read all of the twenty-line at
fifteen feet. When he arrived at the ten-line, however, the first
letter bothered him. He twisted his head in all directions. He stared
at the letter and finally decided to palm again. After a few moments I
asked him to open his eyes, and told him that there were three of the
same letters on the card, but that they were scattered here and there
on the different lines. He again started to read the card, and as he
saw the first letter, on the hundred-line, which was a D, he said:
"Now I know the first letter on the ten-line is a D."
Shifting his eyes from the hundred-line to the ten-line letter had
helped him to see it.
His last visit was a very interesting one. At the beginning of the
treatment I explained to him how important it was for him to practice
palming at least half a dozen times a day, but he did not feel that he
could spare the time, because he earns a little money running errands
for his mother. At the next to the last visit I had a talk with him
about this and said:
"If your eyes are cured you can earn more money during vacation
time, but you cannot if they trouble you."
He promised to practice at home as many times as I wished him to,
so I made him a promise. My rose garden in the country was in full
bloom, and I promised to bring him a bouquet the next day. Not having
enough flowers for each patient, I wrapped Joe's bouquet in paper and
asked Dr. Bates to carry it. Joe spied me first as we passed the long
line of benches which were filled with poor people, all of them
suffering from some eye trouble. His hair was combed, which was
unusual, and he was spruced up generally. He was smiling, too, and his
eyes were shining with great expectations. But when he saw that my
hands were empty, the smile vanished, and a look of disappointment
came into his eyes. I know what it means to be disappointed, so I told
him at once that Dr. Bates was bringing the bouquet for him, and the
sun shone for him once more. I was well repaid for those flowers, for
that day Joe made wonderful progress.
He had to wait some time before I could treat him, and he never
took his eyes from me. I could feel his gratitude, and my impulse was
to take him in my arms and hug him tight; but I refrained, thinking he
might resent the familiarity. He read the ten line at fifteen feet, in
less than a minute, and he told me that he did not suffer any more
pain in his head. He also said that his studies seemed easier to him
when he remembered not to stare or think too hard of one thing.
——
Stop Concentrating
Better Eyesight
A monthly magazine devoted to the prevention and cure of imperfect
sight without glasses
Vol. V - July, 1921 - No. 1
Copyright, 1921, by the Central Fixation Publishing Company
Editor—W. H. Bates, M.D.
Publisher—Central Fixation Publishing Co.
Doctors are needed all over the world to cure people without glasses
$2.00 per year, 20 cents per copy
300 Madison Avenue, New York, N. Y.
——
[...]
Mike Tyner
<mis...@googlemail.com> wrote
"Remember the letter O as you saw it, but first remember the top
best. Now what happens to the bottom?"
"It fades from black to gray," she said.
"Now remember the bottom blacker than the top."
"The same thing happens to the top," she said. "It fades to gray
color." And then she added: "Please let me keep doing this for a
little while, it seems to take my pain away."
O frabjous day! Calloo! Callay! He chortled in his joy.
-MT
Otis
Neil Brooks
....nothing worth repeating.
Same as it ever was....
Mike Tyner
"Neil Brooks" <neil...@yahoo.com> wrote
> Same as it ever was....
I dunno - I thought it was pretty interesting, learning how to do an 8-point
eye examination in 2 minutes. (Hint #1 - leave off step 8.)
The YouTube School of Medicine and Small Engine Repair.
-MT