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Monday, February 27, 2012

A bit of wisdom from Dr. Bates...SHIFTING OF THE EYE

SECOND GOOD VISION HABIT: SHIFTING OF THE EYE... (I like this one:)



...The shifting of the eye with normal vision is usually not conspicuous, but by direct examination with the ophthalmoscope it can always be demonstrated. If one eye is examined with this instrument while the other is regarding a small area straight ahead, the eye being examined, which follows the movements of the other, is seen to move in various directions, from side to side, up and down in an orbit which is usually variable. If the vision is normal these movements are extremely rapid and unaccompanied by any appearance of effort. The shifting of the eye with imperfect sight, on the contrary, is slower, its excursions are wider, and the movements are jerky and made with apparent effort...


...The shorter the shift the greater the benefit; but even a very long shift - as much as three feet or more - is a help to those who cannot accomplish a shorter one. When the patient is capable of a short shift, on the contrary, the long shift lowers the vision...

...One of the best methods of improving the sight, is to imitate consciously the unconscious shifting of normal vision and to realize the apparent motion produced by such shifting...                        Perfect sight is impossible without continual shifting, and such shifting is a striking illustration of the mental control necessary for normal vision. It requires perfect mental control to think of thousands of things in a fraction of a second; and each point of fixation has to be thought of separately, because it is impossible to think of two things, or of two parts of one thing, perfectly at the same time. The eye with imperfect sight tries to accomplish the impossible by looking fixedly at one point for an appreciable length of time; that is, by staring. When it looks at a strange letter and does not see it, it keeps on looking at it in an effort to see it better. Such efforts always fail, and are an important factor in the production of imperfect sight...






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