Читать книгу Save your vision - Pavel Artemiev - Страница 4

The debate about when exactly the people of the Earth began to understand how the human eye works does not subside even today. According to the famous Svyatoslav Fedorov, a Russian ophthalmologist, he was amazed when he got acquainted with the medical instruments of the ancient Egyptians. Many of the tools looked exactly like today’s scalpels, probes, saws, hooks, tweezers, and clamps. Actually, in medieval Europe, thanks to researchers like Leonardo da Vinci and Andreas Vesalius, a lot was already known about the human body.

Of course, not everything went smoothly, and the science of ophthalmology, which studies the anatomy of the eyes, did not immediately become a science. Discoveries were made by trial and error. Let us recall the sad operation performed on the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. In those days, they already understood what a cataract was, and even with terrible methods, they tried to treat it. With a special needle, which was called an “ax”, the healers of that time made a puncture on the eyeball. After that, the clouded lens was simply pushed out of its natural place, hiding behind the iris. Of course, this could not be called a cure, but instead of a complete fog, the patient really began to see something. Unfortunately, very little was known about sepsis in those days, and only in the second half of the 18th century, after the discoveries of Pasteur, Esmarch and Koch, doctors began to disinfect clothes and premises, and sterilize surgical instruments. Well, the great composer was out of luck. Shortly after John Taylor’s operation, he died. Another well-known composer, Georg Friedrich Handel, was also unlucky. Trickster Taylor managed to work with him. Fortunately, Handel did not die, but after the operation he became completely blind.

By the way, Taylor himself, out of harm’s way, went to Russia, where he did exactly the same – deftly “cracked down” on cataracts, earning very good money. However, life roughly punished him: in old age, Taylor himself became blind.

Nevertheless, science did not stand still, Taylor’s baton was picked up by Jacques Devial, who was the first to learn not to displace the affected lens, but to remove it from the eye altogether. Instead of a puncture, he already made an incision, using more skillful tools. In any case, the number of unsuccessful operations dramatically decreased. By the way, today’s ophthalmologists also work according to the Devial method.

Another iconic name is Hermann von Helmholtz (1821—1894), a German physicist, doctor, physiologist and psychologist. In addition to multiple discoveries in the field of physics, this unique scientist studied the features of human hearing and vision. In 1850, he invented the ophthalmoscope, a device for studying the fundus of the eye, and in 1851, the ophthalmometer, a device for determining the radius of curvature of the cornea. He also figured out how to measure the curvature of the lens of the eye, one of the first formulated the theory of accommodation of the eye. It is difficult to list all the achievements of this man, and it is not surprising that many research institutions have been given his name.

For us, it is more important to understand that it was Helmholtz who described in detail the work of the eye lens, which is a biconvex lens, around which the circular ciliary muscle is located. If the ciliary muscle is relaxed, the lens is flat and far vision works. If a person wants to see something up close, he strains the ciliary muscle, and she, in turn, compresses the lens, making it convex. The resulting image enters the retina, and then in the form of a picture is sent to the brain. In other words, Helmholtz believed that it was the eye lens that controlled the focusing of images. He also proposed to compensate for the insufficient work of the lens with external lenses – a biconcave “minus” lens for myopic and a biconvex “plus” lens for farsightedness. This is how glasses entered our lives.

The American ophthalmologist Professor William Horatio Bates (1860—1931) significantly supplemented the development of Helmholtz. Unlike most doctors, he declared war on glasses, explaining that most people who wear glasses need glasses with stronger lenses every year. He also tried to prove that the main role in focusing visible images is played not by the lens, but by the eyeball itself. That is, the process of accommodation (focusing the eye on sharpness) is controlled by six oculomotor muscles. And it is the violation of the work of these muscles that entails visual impairment: myopia, hyperopia, strabismus and astigmatism. As the main argument, William Bates cited the fact that the glasses do not allow the eye muscles to work. Well, what doesn’t work quickly atrophies.

Accordingly, Bates proposed to abandon the issued glasses, replacing them with weaker ones. And most importantly, he suggested using special exercises to normalize the work of the oculomotor muscles. In addition to restoring vision, according to Bates, this also prevents such dangerous diseases as glaucoma, cataracts, retinal dystrophy, the cause of which should be considered congestion in the eyes. Thus, not only vision is corrected, but the youthfulness of the eyes is also prolonged.

Over time, Bates gained a considerable number of students and followers, although official ophthalmology is in no hurry to adopt his methods. One of the reasons for this attitude can be called the fact that medicine was initially turned into a service sector – and services are very well paid. Glasses, lenses, eye surgeries – all this has long become a significant segment of today’s market. The second reason is our laziness. In fact, it is much easier to surrender to the mercy of doctors than to make certain efforts to restore one’s own health. And here the choice is already exclusively individual: there is no desire to work on yourself, open your wallet wider. If there is an understanding of the problem and due determination, have a little patience – and go!