When we become ill, Nature does her part, if we do ours, towards getting well. Eyes have various recuperative powers, at least to some degree. Reducing their abuse by improving seeing conditions is always helpful, and there are many cases on record where great improvement has followed on this procedure. Indeed, without correction of the abuse, the disorder generally becomes progressively worse.” These are encouraging words that leave us with the hope that we are to be given a description of some new and genuinely aetiological treatment of visual defects, to take the place of the purely symptomatic treatment at present in vogue. But this hope is only imperfectly fulfilled. “Poor lighting,” Dr. Luckiesh goes on, “is the most important and universal cause of eye-strain, often leading to progressive defects and disorders.”
His whole book is an elaboration of this theme. Let me hasten to add that, within its limitations, it is an admirable book. To those suffering from defects of vision the importance of good lighting is very great indeed; and one can only be grateful to Dr. Luckiesh for his scientific clarification of the meaning “good lighting” in terms of standard, measureable entities such as foot-candles. One’s only complaint is that foot-candles are not enough. In treating other parts of the organism doctors are not content to ameliorate merely the external conditions of functioning; they also seek to improve the internal conditions, to work directly on the physiological environment of the sick organ as well as on the physical environment outside the body. Thus when legs are crippled, doctors refuse to let their patients rely indefinitely on crutches.
Nor do they consider that the laying down of rules for avoiding accidents constitutes sufficient treatment for the condition of being crippled. On the contrary, they regard the use of crutches as merely a palliative and temporary expedient, and while paying attention to external conditions, they also do their best to improve the internal conditions of the defective part, so that nature may be helped to do its work of healing. Some of these measures, such as rest, massage, applications of heat and light, make no appeal to the patient’s mind, but are aimed directly at the affected organs, their purpose being to relax, to increase circulation and to preserve mobility. Other measures are educational and involve, on the patient’s part, a co-ordination of mind and body. By means of this appeal to the psychological factor, astonishing results are often obtained.
A good teacher, using the right technique, can often educate a victim of accident or paralysis into gradual recovery of his lost functions, and through that recovery of function, into the re-establishment of the health and integrity of the defective organ. If such things can be done for crippled legs, why should it not be possible to do something analogous for defective eyes? To this question the orthodox theory provides no answer—merely takes it for granted that the defective eye is incurable and cannot, in spite of its peculiarly intimate relationship with the psyche, be re-educated towards normality by any process of mind-body co-ordination.
The orthodox theory is, on the face of it, so implausible, so intrinsically unlikely to be true, that one can only be astonished that it should be so generally and so unquestioningly accepted. Nevertheless, such is the force of habit and authority that we all do accept it. At the present time it is rejected only by those who have personal reasons for knowing it to be untrue. I myself happen to be one of these. By the greatest of good fortune I was given the opportunity to discover by personal experience that eyes do not lack the vis medicatrix naturæ, that the palliation of symptoms is not the only treatment for defective vision, that the function of sight can be re-educated towards normality by appropriate body-mind co-ordination, and finally that the improvement in functioning is accompanied by an improvement in the condition of the damaged organ. This personal experience has been confirmed by my observation of many others who have gone through the same process of visual education. It is therefore no longer possible for me to accept the currently orthodox theory, with its hopelessly pessimistic practical corollaries.
CHAPTER II, A Method of Visual Re-Education
In the early years of the present century Dr. W. H. Bates, a New York oculist, became dissatisfied with the ordinary symptomatic treatment of eyes. Seeking a substitute for artificial lenses, he set himself to discover if there was any way of re-educating defective vision into a condition of normality.
As the result of his work with a large number of patients he came to the conclusion that the great majority of visual defects were functional and due to faulty habits of use. These faulty habits of use were invariably related, he found, to a condition of strain and tension. As was to be expected from the unitary nature of the human organism, the strain affected both the body and the mind.
Dr. Bates discovered that, by means of appropriate techniques, this condition of strain could be relieved. When it had been relieved—when patients had learnt to use their eyes and mind in a relaxed way—vision was improved and refractive errors tended to correct themselves. Practice in the educational techniques served to build up good seeing habits in place of the faulty habits responsible for defective vision, and in many cases function came to be completely and permanently normalized.
Now, it is a well established physiological principle that improved functioning always tends to result in an improvement in the organic condition of the tissues involved. The eye, Dr. Bates discovered, was no exception to this general rule. When the patient learnt to relax his tenseness and acquired proper seeing habits, the vis medicatrix naturæ was given a chance to operate—with the result that, in many cases, the improvement of functioning was followed by a complete restoration of the health and organic integrity of the diseased eye.
Dr. Bates died in 1931, and up to the time of his death he continued to perfect and develop his methods for the improvement of visual function. Furthermore, during the last years of Dr. Bates’s life and since his death his pupils, in various parts of the world, have devised a number of valuable new applications of the general principles which he laid down. By means of these techniques large numbers of men, women and children, suffering from visual defects of every kind, have been successfully re-educated into normality or towards normality. For anyone who has studied a selection of these cases, or who has himself undergone the process of visual re-education, it is impossible to doubt that here at last is a method of treating imperfect sight which is not merely symptomatic, but genuinely aetiological—a method which does not confine itself to the mechanical neutralization of defects but aims at the removal of their physiological and psychological causes. And yet, in spite of the long period during which it has been known, in spite of the quality and quantity of the results obtained through its employment by competent instructors. Dr. Bates’s technique still remains unrecognized by the medical and optometrical professions. It is, I think, worth while, before going any further, to enumerate and discuss the principal reasons for this, to my mind, deplorable state of things.
Reasons for Orthodox Disapproval
In the first place, the very fact that the method is unrecognized and lies outside the pale of orthodoxy is a sufficient invitation to the petty adventurers and charlatans who hang upon the skirts of society, ever ready and eager to take advantage of human suffering. There exist, scattered about the world, some scores or perhaps hundreds of well trained and thoroughly conscientious teachers of Dr. Bates’s method. But there are also, unfortunately, a number of ignorant and unscrupulous quacks, who know little more of the system than its name. The fact is deplorable, but not at all surprising. The number of those who fail to obtain relief from the current symptomatic treatment of visual defect is considerable, and the Bates Method has a high reputation for effectiveness in such cases. Moreover, the technique is unorthodox; therefore no standards of competence are legally imposed upon its teachers.
A large potential clientele, a desperate need of help, and no questions asked as to knowledge, character and ability. These are the ideal conditions for the practice of charlatanism. What wonder, then, if certain unscrupulous people have taken advantage of the opportunities thus offered? But because some unorthodox practitioners are charlatans, it does not logically follow that all must be. I repeat that it does not logically follow; but, alas, as the history of almost any professional group clearly demonstrates, orthodox
