Your Eyesight Will Improve Significantly

A Case of Cataract
By Emily C. Lierman

One day as I entered the clinic I found a little white-haired woman waiting patiently to be treated. I had not seen her before, and did not know what her trouble was. The usual crowd of patients was waiting for Dr. Bates and myself, so when he said to me, “See what you can do for this woman,” I did not ask any questions, for I knew that whatever the condition of her eyes relaxation would help her.

I placed her four feet from the test card, at which distance she read the forty line (read by the eye with normal vision at forty feet), and told her how to rest her eyes by palming and how to avoid staring by shifting from one side of a letter to another. These practices helped her so much that before she left she was able to read the thirty line.

Later I learned that she had first seen Dr. Bates in March, 1919, and that she had incipient cataract of both eyes. In October. 1916. she had visited another dispensary where an operation was advised when the on line cataracts were ripe. I also learned that in spite of her seventy-three years she worked hard every day for her living, being employed in an orphan asylum where she mended the children’s clothes. The fact that she was very deaf I saw for myself, of course, at the first interview, for I had to scream to make her hear. Her courage and cheerfulness under circumstances that might have daunted the bravest spirit were amazing. Her .face was always radiant with smiles, and she was so witty, and so appreciative of everything that was done ,for her, that each one of her visits to the clinic was a pleasure to me.

“I have so much to be thankful for,” she said one day. “I know I will see all right again. They ate waiting to operate at the abler dispensary, and I am waiting to fool them.”

The orphanage is about two miles from the clinic, and often she walks the entire distance rather than bother waiting for a car. She insists after these feats that she isn’t a bit tired. One day there were no cars running;and the walking was so bad that a friend urged her not to go out unless she was prepared to swim. She came just as usual, however. Why should she stay in, she asked, because other people were afraid to go out. She wasn’t tired either, and she hadn’t even got her feet wet. She just dodged the snowdrifts.

Most patients frown when they cannot see a letter, but my little cataract patient smiles instead and remarks cheerfully, “That’s the time you got me.”

One day she did not do as well as usual, and I found that the people in the place where she worked had been saying unpleasant things. I told her she must try not to let things of this sort disturb her, because that made her strain and made the cataracts worse.

“Well,” she said, “it is mighty hard not to worry; but I’ll try not to.”

At a recent visit she explained that she wouldn’t he able to do very well because she hadn’t had time to practice.

“Never mind,” I said. “Just do as well as you can.” Without her knowing it I placed her two feet farther from the card .than usual. Then I told her to palm, and after a short time I pointed to a small letter on the bottom line and asked her if she could see it. She recognized it immediately. Then I pointed to another, but she was so eager to see it that she tried too hard and failed. She closed her eyes for a few minutes without palming, and when she opened them she read the whole line. I then told her that she was two feet farther away from the card than she usually was. She was very happy about this and said, “That’s the time you fooled me.”

She has since become able to read the bottom line at ten feet, and one day she read’ it at eleven feet, without knowing it and without having done any practicing at home. On sunshiny days she can read the “W. H. Bates, M.D.” on Dr. Bates’ card, and for over a month she has done all her sewing without glasses. There is no doubt that she is going to fool them at the other dispensary.

Along with the improvement in her eyes has gone a considerable improvement in her hearing. Noises in her ears which she describes as a “ringing and a singing” are promptly relieved by palming, and she says that the relief, which at first was only temporary, is now becoming more constant. She also says that she hears conversation better than she used to.

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