In cases of failing sight, due to old age or other causes, and in certain pathological conditions of the eye, some doctors, particularly those of the Viennese school, make successful use of mechanical methods for increasing local circulation. Temporary hyperaemia of the regions round the eye is produced by dry cupping of the temples, or by the application of leeches, or sometimes by fastening round the neck a specially made elastic collar, so adjusted as to permit the blood to flow freely into the head through the arteries, while reducing the amount to return by slightly constricting the veins.
None of these procedures should be tried out, except under expert medical advice; nor, indeed, is it necessary in most cases that they should be tried. Relaxation and proper breathing will bring about an equal improvement in circulation, more slowly indeed, but more safely and naturally, and by methods which are entirely under the control of the person employing them. Moreover, the resulting improvement in visual functioning and in the organic condition of the eyes will be the same, whichever means of increasing circulation are employed. The mechanical methods are no better than the self-directed, psycho-physical methods here described. Indeed, insofar as they are mechanical, they are intrinsically less satisfactory. If I mention them at all, it is merely in order to corroborate the assertion that vision and the organic health of the eyes depend upon adequate circulation.
The extent of this dependence can be demonstrated in a very simple way. As you read, draw a deep breath and then exhale. While the air is being breathed out, you will notice that the print before your eyes becomes perceptibly clearer, blacker and more distinct. This temporary improvement of vision is due to a slight temporary hyperaemia in the head; and this, in turn, is due to the slight constriction of the veins in the neck caused by the act of expiration. More than the usual amount of blood is present in and around the eyes—with the result that the sensing apparatus does its work more efficiently, and the mind is given better material with which to do its perceiving and seeing.
CHAPTER VIII, The Eye, Organ of Light
In insects and fishes, in birds and beasts and men, eyes have been developed with the express purpose of responding to light waves. Light is their element; and when they are deprived of light, either wholly or in part, they lose their power and even develop serious diseases, such as the nystagmus of coal miners. This does not mean, of course, that eyes must be perpetually exposed to light. Sleep is necessary to the mind that perceives, and for seven or eight hours at least out of the twenty-four, darkness is necessary to the sensing apparatus. The eyes do their work most easily and efficiently when they are allowed to alternate between good solid darkness and good bright light.
The Current Fear of Light
In recent years there has grown up a most pernicious and entirely unfounded belief that light is bad for the eyes. An organ which, for some scores of millions of years, has been adapting itself very successfully to sunshine of all degrees of intensity, is now supposed to be incapable of tolerating daylight without the mitigating intervention of tinted goggles, or lamplight, except when diffused through ground glass or reflected from the ceiling. This extraordinary notion that the organ of light perception is unfitted to stand light has become popular only in the last twenty years or so. Before the war of 1914 it was, I remember, the rarest thing to see anyone wearing dark glasses.
As a small boy, I would look at a be-goggled man or woman with that mixture of awed sympathy and rather macabre curiosity which children reserve for those afflicted with any kind of unusual or disfiguring physical handicap. Today, all that is changed. The wearing of black spectacles has become not merely common, but creditable. Just how creditable is proved by the fact that the girls in bathing suits, represented on the covers of fashion magazines in summer time, invariably wear goggles. Black glasses have ceased to be the badge of the afflicted, and are now compatible with youth, smartness and sex appeal.
This fantastic craze for blacking out the eyes had its origin in certain medical circles, where a panic terror of the ultra-violet radiations in ordinary sunlight developed about a generation back; it has been fostered and popularized by the manufacturers and vendors of coloured glass and celluloid spectacle frames. Their propaganda has been effective. In the Western world, millions of people now wear dark glasses, not merely on the beach, or when driving their cars, but even at dusk, or in the dim-lit corridors of public buildings. Needless to say, the more they wear them, the weaker their eyes become and the greater their need for “protection” from the light. One can acquire an addiction to goggles, just as one can acquire an addiction to tobacco or alcohol.
This addiction has its origin in the fear of light—a fear which those who have it feel to be justified by the discomfort they experience when their eyes are exposed to too intense a brightness. The question arises: why this fear and this discomfort? Animals get on very happily without goggles; so do primitive men. And even in civilized societies, even in these days when the virtues of coloured glass are everywhere persuasively advertised, millions of people face the sunlight without goggles and, so far from suffering any ill effects, see all the better for it. There is every reason to suppose that, physiologically, the eyes are so constructed that they can tolerate illuminations of very high intensity. Why, then, do so many people in the contemporary world experience discomfort when exposed to light even of relatively low intensity?
Reasons for the Fear of Light
There seem to be two main reasons for this state of things. The first is connected with the silly craze for shutting out the light, described in an earlier paragraph. Medical alarmists and the advertisers, who exploit the opinions of these learned gentlemen for their own profit, have convinced large sections of the public that light is harmful to the eyes. This is not true; but the belief that it is true can cause a great deal of harm to those who entertain it. If faith can move mountains, it can also ruin vision—as anyone may see for himself who has watched the behaviour of light-fearing people when suddenly exposed to sunshine. They know that light is bad for them.
Consequently, what grimaces! What frowns! What narrowings of the lids! What screwings-up of the eyes! In a word, what manifest symptoms of strain and tension! Originating in a false belief, the purely mental terror of light expresses itself physically in terms of a strained and thoroughly abnormal condition of the sensing apparatus. Eyes in such a condition are no longer capable of reacting as they should to the external environment. Instead of accepting the sunlight easily and as a blessing, they suffer discomfort and even develop an inflammation of the tissues. Hence more pain and a heightening of fear, a confirmation of the false faith that light is harmful.
There is also another reason for the discomfort which so many people now experience when exposed to light. They may not start with any a priori terror of light; but because their seeing organs are strained and defective, owing to habits of wrong use, their eyes and mind may be incapable of reacting normally to the external environment. Strong light is painful to the tense, strained seeing organs. Because it is painful, a fear of light develops in the mind; and this fear becomes, in its turn, a cause of further strain and discomfort.
Casting Out Fear
The fear of light, like all other kinds of fear, can be cast out of the mind; and the physical discomfort experienced when the sensing apparatus is exposed to light can be prevented by means of suitable techniques. When this has been done, it will no longer be necessary to black out the eyes with tinted goggles. Nor is this all. In the process of learning to react to light in a normal and natural way, defective seeing organs can do much to relieve the strain that impairs their visual power. Acquiring normal reactions to light is one of the essential procedures in the art of seeing. Appropriate drill in connection with sunlight will produce a valuable kind of passive relaxation; and the power so acquired of dealing easily and effortlessly with the strongest illuminations can be carried over into active life, to become an element in that dynamic relaxation of the seeing organs, without which there can never be perfect vision.
In all cases where light causes discomfort, the first thing to do is to cultivate an attitude of confidence. We must bear steadily in mind that light is not harmful, at least in any degree of intensity we are ever
