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Optometric Historical Society 

243 North Lindbergh Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri 63141, USA 
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(' . .. . ..... ··--Volume 28 April1997 t Ln .. .nana Uujvgre;i~UIDDer 2 
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oUIANA uNIVI:.t<~. : MAY 1 tJ 19il : 

Optometry at the frontier: o • 

JUN 11 1997 ~ Lt"b : rary 
On more than one occasif6PrOMtftW\.~tHted,• Mtf'lt~h.Tt•J'rtleP, -tlitat.<i\p.t:Qiftetric 

services played hardly any role at all in the western frontier movement across the 
Atlantic Ocean and the North American continent. My logic was simply the belief that 
in the centuries involved, the 16th through the 19th, the commercially available 
spectacle lenses were almost exclusively simple plus spheres for presbyopes, and the 
frontier participants were comprised equally exclusively of able-bodied, fairly 
emmetropic, youths, mostly in their teens. 

Recently I enjoyed reading Stephen E. Ambrose's "Undaunted Courage," a 
thoroughly documented and remarkably detailed account of the Lewis and Clark 
expedition opening up the American West during the years 1804 to 1806. The 
expedition platoon consisted of a nucleus of 31 volunteers supplemented in segments 
of the specially skilled local personnel. Co-captains Lewis and Clark were in their early 
30s and the rest of the party were younger, carefully selected, healthy volunteers 
submitting to military enlistment for the project. 

The 500-page book includes nary an optometric concept except the mentioning 
that one pro tern private, a halfbreed hired for his language skills, was "nearsighted 
in his only good eye." This comment was a mere conjecture in trying to place the 
blame for a misdirected rifle shot that injured Captain Lewis. Another entry in Captain 
Lewis's journal notes stated "soar eyes is a common complaint among the party." For 
sore eyes he used a wash made up of two parts white vitriol (zinc sulphate) and one 
part sugar of lead (lead acetate). 

To impress the Indians with their powers, Lewis and Clark would bring out their 
"magic show" which included, among other things, a magnifying glass that could start 
a fire by focusing the sun's rays on dry leaves and kindling, and a telescope 
(spyglass). Among the trinkets, beads, and other "geegaws" serving as gifts to 
Indians they included "looking glasses" (small mirrors) described by one Shoshone 
warrior as "things like solid water, which were sometimes brilliant as the sun, and 
which sometimes showed us our faces." Such items, plus a sextant, a chronometer, 
and certain other precision instruments with optical components needed for scientific 
observations, may well have been fabricated by east coast or European opticians, but 
they would hardly have constituted optometric involvement in terms of vision 
correction or care. 

It seems to me that the assertion in my opening sentence is well supported by 
the Lewis and Clark documents. 

H.W H. 



28/10 

Early gullibility: 

Charlatanism is the pretension of more knowledge or skill than is possessed. 
It is a particularly serious issue in the health care field for two reasons. One, the 
victims, members of the public, are typically unsophisticated in the science of health 
care, and two, it is socioeconomically awkward for the legitimate practitioners to 
initiate measures to restrict perpetrators of the quackery lest it be construed as 
restraint of competition. 

During the first half of this centllry an optometric case in point was the nthrow 
away your glassesn propaganda ini,tiateq ,J~r~~y ,bY W .H. Bates, M.D., and a variety 
of adherents who offered clinical services based mainly on Bate's assertions and 
theories. 

The late Jim Leeds prompted my memory of this era by calling my attention to 
two interrelated books. One is The Cure of Imperfect Sight by Treatment Without 
Glasses authored by Bates in 1920. The other is Stories from the Clinic authored by 
Bates' nurse Emily C. Lierman in 1926. Both were published by Central Fixation 
Publishing Co., New York City. They are respectable-looking cloth-bound books of 
several hundred pages with tables of contents, indices, prefaces; etc., giving a 
textbook resemblance. I recall having seen these or companion books in the university 
library a half century or so ago. At that time I scanned a dozen or two pages of each 
and returned the books to the shelves as worthless reading. I did not "pick up the 
cudgeln to battle the fraud. It may have seemed to me that any person with 
reasonable intelligence would recognize its lack of validity and dismiss it off hand. 

This time, spurred by Dr. Leeds' prompting, I decided to read through the two 
books with some deliberate care. After about thirty pages of each I began to resort 
to mere scanning page by page and sampling numerous paragraphs in which key 
words suggested potential validity concepts. I felt like I was slogging through a 
swamp, impelled to follow through by the awareness that these publications had once 
met with wide popular readership including a number of converts of recognized 
literacy stature. 

So that you who are reading this may share my experience, I quite blindly 
opened each book within approximately the middle third of its text and rome each pari 
of pages selected one or more paragraphs that seemed to me to exemplify the style 
and intellectual caliber of the book as a whole. Here they are. 

From pages 11 0-111 of the chapter entitled "Strain" in the Bates book: 

Two little girl patients arrived one after the other one day, and the first accused 
the second of having stopped at Huyler's for an ice-cream soda, which she had been 
instructed not to do, being somewhat too much addicted to sweets. The second denied 
the charge, and the first, who had used the retinoscope and knew what it did to people 
who told lies, said: 

"Do take the retinoscope and find out. " 
I followed the suggestion, and having thrown the light into the second child's 

eyes, I asked: 
"Did you go to Huyler's?" 



28/].1. 

"Yes," was the response, and the retinoscope indicated no error of refraction. 
"Did you have an ice-cream soda?" 
"No," said the child; but the telltale shadow moved in a direction opposite to that 

of the mirror, showing that she had become myopic and was not telling the truth. 
The child blushed when I told her this and acknowledged that the retinoscope was 

right; for she had heard of ways of the uncanny instrument before and did not know what 
else it might do to her if she said anything more that was not true. 

So sensitive is this test that if the subject, whether his vision is ordinarily normal 
or not, pronounces the initials of his name correctly while looking at a blank surface 
without trying to see, there will be no error of refraction; bit if he miscalls one initial, 
even without any consciousness effort, and with full knowledge that he is deceiving no 
one, myopia will be produced. 

From pages 84-85 of the chapter entitled "Experiences with School Children" 
in the nurse's book: 

I wish everyone who contributed to our ChristmaS Fund could have been with us 
on the Christmas of 1923. We had our first tree. Not only did our clinic patients enjoy 
it, but our private patients as well. I fear, too, that on more than one occasion, a private 
patient was kept waiting much longer than he cared to wait, while Dr. Bates hovered 
around that Christmas tree. Dr. Bates does not like to neglect his work, but that tree 
needed his attention, he thought, even though he was keeping his patients waiting. His 
orders were not to purchase anything cheap. The clinic family is precious to him and 
must have the best of everything. When it came time to distribute the toys and candies 
to the children, I saw him peeping in at the doorway, and this added pleasure of having 
a tree for them did him a world of good. The children all love him because he does so 
much for them. 

Having read these we may smile with the satisfaction of knowing that this is 
now history. Or is the game still going on? Let us read the newspapers and 
magazines, watch television, listen to radio, and peruse the junk mail a bit more 
analytically. We may find that the pawns are of different shades and color, that the 
playing court is now an electric keyboard, and that other ailments replace imperfect 
sight. A knowledge of history can be our best antidote for gullibility. 

H.WH. 

Thanks for the enemy: 

Before the turn of the century American optometrists, then called opticians, 
made some relatively unenthusiastic overtures to state legislatures to enact optometric 
registration laws. They were primarily responding to veiled threats or rumors that the 
medical profession was initiating plans to accomplish this by regulation of optometry 
subordinately under the licensure provisions of the medical bureau. In the State of 
New York the optometrists' efforts had started in 1897. under Prentice's urging. 
Pennsylvania optometrists followed suit in 1898 without success. Fifteen years later 
the Pennsylvania law was amended to authorize the medical bureau to license 
"branch" medical practices. In 1914 the bureau declared its intent to so license 
optometrists. This met with mixed emotions among optometrists but the attitude 
quickly changed under the forceful and convincing leadership of a young Philadelphia 



28/12 

optometrist named Albert Fitch. Legal action was then initiated which led to the state 
supreme court decision that optometry is not a branch of medicine. 

The above is described in great detail in an editorial entitled "Fitch's Choice" by 
John G. Classe in the April 1996 issue of the Journal of the American Optometric 
Association, vol. 67, no. 4, pp. 186-187. In the next five pages in an article entitled 
"Celebrating 75 years at the Pennsylvania College of Optometry," Thomas L. Lewis 
gives a fine historical account of Albert Fitch's role in the establishment of the 
Pennsylvania College of Optometry chartered in 1 919 and his stewardship as president 
until his death in 1960. Lewis's article continues the developmental history of the 
college through its 75th anniversary in 1995. · 

H.W H. 

Gems from Ophthalmic Antiques: 

The last several issues of Ophthalmic Antiques, the newsletter of the 
Ophthalmic Antiques International Collectors' Club, contain several interesting 
historical tidbits. The July 1994 issue, no. 48, mentions that "The Seeing Eye, 
Eyeglass to Spyglass" by Arthur Frank is a new 42-page booklet illustrating about 175 
antique vision aids with comments on their history. It is available at £4 per copy from 
the Ophthalmic Antiques· International Collectors' Club. 

Replica eyebaths are produced by Summit Art Glass of Ravenna, Ohio, U.S.A. 
The U.K. Opticians Act of 1958 was so tightly drafted that a special clause had to be 
inserted to permit an antiques dealer legally to sell a. pair of antique spectacles. John 
Dixon Salt authors a 3-page article on "optical Patron Saints," pointing out their origins 
with the early days of Christianity. Most of the article deals with Saint Lucia of 
Syracuse (A.D. 304). 

Colin B. Fryer authors a 3-page review of "Ophthalmics in the Reign of George 
II," the years of 1727 to 1760, a surprisingly progressive 33 years. 

The October 1994 issue of Ophthalmic Antiques, no. 49, p. 3, includes an 
article entitled "The History of Eyewear in Mexico" by Frank Devlyn. The article 
actually deals more with the business aspects than with spectacles per se. It 
describes the increased involvement of optometrists, ophthalmologists, and 
manufacturers during the 19th and 20th centuries. 

On page 7 John Dixon Salt gives a number of biographical details of optical 
patron Saint Odilia (variously Ottlia, Othilia, or Odile), c. 660-720. On page 8 Colin 
Fryer entertains us with nine "Optical Legends of Old Cathay," pure legend, of course. 

Ronald J.S. MacGregor, editor of Ophthalmic Antiques, has a knack for spotting 
bits of information that may be of interest to members of the Ophthalmic Antiques 
International Collectors' Club. Quite understandably some of these have incidental 
significance to optometric history insofar as they illustrate or document our status and 
competence in various eras. In the January 1995 issue, no. 50-for example-he 
informs us of a new "Musee de L'instrumentation Optique" housed in Le Capitola, 



28/13 

Place de Ia Mairie, F-686000 Biesheim, France. Biesheim is in northeastern France, 
not far from Strasbourg. He also calls our attention to two new historical books, Da 
Guckste by Helga Beez and Brillen des 20 Jarhuderts by B. Michael Andressen. From 
Pierre Marly he learned that the letters NB stamped on the steel bridge of a pair of 
bow spectacles may be the initials of Nicolas Bion, 1652-1733, of Paris. On pages 
6 and 7 is an article by Ida Mann entitled "Dr. Josef Dallos, Contact Lens Pioneer." 

The April 1995 issue of Ophthalmic Antiques, no. 51, calls our attention to a 
half-page article in the Saturday, December 31, 1994, issue of The London Times 
entitled "For Your Eyes Only." On pages 3-5 of the same newsletter Frank Davidson 
tells us about Matthew William Dunscombe (1848-19??), "The First Great Collector 
of Antique Spectacles." Among other accomplishments he authored a booklet entitled 
"Vision and Spectacles" in 1875. On page 6 Mr. Salt describes the legend of optical 
patron Saint Herve (variously Harvey), 6th century. On page 7 Colin Fryer describes 
"Old Chinese Spectacles." 

The July 1995 issue of Ophthalmic Antiques, no. 52, features an article on 
pages 4-6 by Charles Letocha entitled "John McAllister, the First True Optician in the 
U.S.A." On page 7 is a full reproduction of a mid-nineteenth century handbill 
distributed by optician" John Solomon, Licensed Hawker, No. 4613, A. according to 
Act of Parliament." The handbill was contributed by Hugh Orr and is dedicated, "To 
all who value their SIGHT which is so subject to debility." On page 8 Colin Fryer cites 
numerous examples of spectacles mentioned in medieval literature. On page 9 John 
Salt describes another optical patron saint, Saint Audomarus (variously Orner or 
Otmar), d.c. 669. 

Ronald MacGregor, editor of the October 1995 issue of Ophthalmic Antiques, 
no. 53, describes in detail a Netherlands tour of ophthalmic antiques collections by a 
group of 20 club members from several countries on August 24-27, 1 995. In another 
item he mentions that Jonathan Pointer has published a 17-page article on "age 
markings on antique spectacles, and presbyopia" in Ophthalmic and Physiological 
Optics, vol. 15, no. 4, 1995. 

On pages 4 and 5 of the newsletter, Colin Fryer authors an article on the history 
of the solar microscope, an instrument equipped to utilize the sun for illuminating the 
specimen under view. It was developed around the beginning of the 18th century and 
continued to be made until the second half of the 19th. 

Very briefly reviewed are three books as follows: Theaterverrekijkers (Opera 
Glasses) by Jean-Marie Devriendt, Eyebaths-Eyewash Cups by Willem Banninga, and 
Society and Optical Aids (a doctoral thesis on the history of vision aids, published in 
Greek) by Ann H. Diamondopoulou-Drummond. 

In the April1996 issue, no. 55, editor MacGregor calls our attention to a 7-page 
report by Judith Stevenson in The London Archaeologist, vol. 7, no. 12, 1995, 
entitled "A new type of late medieval spectacle frame from the City of London." The 
several pair of centrally riveted bone spectacle frames recovered there in 1974 and 
more recently are thought to be from the late 14th century or early 1 5th century. 
They are on display at the Museum of London. Both the Stevenson article and 



28/14 

MacGregor's review (pp. 3-6) include several photographs and fine-line drawings to 
show the design features. 

There is some doubt as to whether the frames are made from bone (bull 
metacarpal) or from horn. Three pinholes in each of the shoulders of the frame 
extensions to the rivet suggest their purpose as supplementary vision aids as well as 
decorations, hence the "very first multifocals." 

On page 7-8 Colin Fryer describes ocular conditions and treatments that 
occurred in the military, medical, and nursing Order of the Knights Hospitallers of St. 
John of Jerusalem (and later Knights of Rhodes) founded in 1099 A.D. 

On page 9 John Dixon Salt describes the legend of the optical patron saint, 
Saint Govan (variously Gobhan, Gobban, Gowan), ca. 586. His remains are said to 
lie in a 6th-century hermit's chapel "halfway down Pembrokeshire cliff" in Wales. He 
is celebrated on 26 March. 

In the July 1996 issue of Ophthalmic Antiques, no. 56, p. 1, Editor MacGregor 
amuses us with the information that the well known Johnnie Walker image on the 
labels of the world's best selling Scotch whiskey has now been changed to a new 
version without the quizzing-glass. It seems that the market researchers found the old 
figure to be too "rakish," too "snobbish," and too "English." 

On pages 3-5 Werner Weismuller describes "Two German Trade Cards" in his 
private collection, including a photocopy of each. One is that of Optiker Gottfried 
Tauber of Leipzig in 1 814, the optician who provided Goethe with scissors spectacles 
for his five or six diopters of myopia. The other is that of Josef Kriegsmann, an 
optician in Ansbach, Bavaria, Germany, from 1 825 to 1876. Both trade cards 
illustrate engravings of a wide variety of visual aids and other optical instruments. 

On page 1 0 are brief reviews of four books of interest to collectors. One is Eye 
and Instruments by I. Tonkelaar, H.E. Henkes, and G.K. van Leersum, published by 
Batavian Lion, Amsterdam, 1996, 304 pp., hardback, a detailed catalog of 19th­
century ophthalmic instruments in the Netherlands. Another is Binoculars by Fred 
Watson, Shire Publications Ltd., 1995, 32 pp., paperback. It covers the basic history 
and optics of binocular, opera glasses, and field glasses. A third is In View, the 
Telescopes of the Luxottica Museum, edited by Marisa Del Vecchio, published by 
~uxottica, 1995, 127 pp., hardback. The fourth is A Spectacle of Spectacles, 178 
pp., hardback. This is a catalog of the Jena Exhibition in the U.K. in 1988/89. The 
Ophthalmic Antiques International Collectors' Club has a few copies for sale. 

The October 1 996 issue of the newsletter includes a detailed description of two 
pairs of very early spectacle frames made of beechwood and a wooden spectacle case 
found at Freeburg, Germany, in 1 982 during excavations for an underground car-park 
near the Augustine Monastery. "They were resting at the bottom of a closet." 

Also described is a medal designed by Dutch artist Chris van der Hoef (1875-
1933) for the participants in the 13th International Ophthalmological Congress in 
1929. A pair of old spectacles and a burning candle are represented on the face of 



28/15 

the medal. Another medal by the same artist depicts the 16th-century Gate of the Old 
Men's House in Amsterdam faced with a carved stone depicting a pair of leather 
spectacles, the "domestic trade mark" of that institution. 

Editor MacGregor describes a weekend trip to Sweden by nine members of the 
Ophthalmic Antiques International Collectors' Club which included a visit to the Gertz 
collection in the optometry practice of lwan Wessblad in Uppsala and to the Swedish 
Museum of Optical History in Stockholm. Valerie Mellor describes her reaction to the 
"grotesque spectacled helmet" presented to King Henry VIII by the Emperor Maximilian 
in 1 514. It is being removed from the Tower of London to the new Royal Armouries 
Museum in Leeds. 

The January 1997 issue of Ophthalmic Antiques, no. 58, calls attention to a 
newly-opened museum of spectacles in Amsterdam founded by Jan Teunissen at 
Gasthuismolensteig 7, 1026 AM Amsterdam, Holland. 

On pages 4 and 5 under the title "Golden Memories," optometrist Arthur Frank 
describes his introduction to the profession in the mid 1 930s and his failures and 
successes in developing practices in Glasgow and the islands of North and South Uist, 
lslay, and Barra in the Hebrides. 

On pages 6 and 7 Colin Fryer retells Goldsmith's Gross of Green Spectacles as 
a Christmas story. On pages 11 and 12 he describes 16th-century "peepshows and 
perspective boxes." These devices were derived from the portable camera obscura 
adapted by simple converging lenses to permit monocular viewing of an enclosed 
painted picture illuminated by both transmitted and reflected light. Because the 
monocular viewing eliminated the binocular nondisparate fusion otherwise induced by 
the flat picture itself, it allowed the monocular depth clues of the painting, especially 
perspective, to predominate to give an enhanced appearance of depth in the painted 
scene. In a footnote Fryer reminds us that these perspective boxes are not to be 
confused with a device of the same name later invented by Robert Hooke, 1635-1703. 
Fryer also describes variations of design of the boxes, variously called peepshows, 
appearing during the 18th and 19th centuries. 

H.W H. 

The boxing method: 

Leafing through the July 1996 issue of Frames Lab Talk, I was a bit startled on 
page 12 by the Industry Profile column captioned "Thomas P. Lynch, Creator of the 
Box Measurement." Having spent the early years of my career in close association 
with the late Glenn Fry, I was very aware of Glenn's extensive involvement with the 
"boxing system" of spectacle lens measurement and had presumed that he rather than 
Mr. Lynch was the "creator." 

Yes and no. The Lab Talk profile identifies Lynch's contribution with the 
authorship of a 1950 booklet entitled "Lens and Frame Information" in which the 
boxing system is explained. However, I made a quick library search and discovered 
that Dr. Fry had described the same system in the June 12, 1947, issue of the 



28/16 

Optometric Weekly as a method which "makes use of the distances between vertical 
and horizontal tangent lines," geometrically a bit more precise than "box." 

In telephone conversation Mr. Lynch takes no credit for coining the "box" term 
itself, but he reports that his booklet sold over a quarter of a million copies worldwide 
and is credited with eliminating a frequent error in the mounting of spectacle lenses. 

H.W H. 

17th-century notions: 

Because Descartes (1596-1650) theorized the separation of the mind from the 
body, must he have been curious about what goes on in the brain after the visual 
image is formed? Elwin Marg touches upon this in his review of Descartes' Error: 
Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain by Antonio R. Damasio, 1994, in the 
November 1995 issue of Optometry and Vision Science, vol. 72, no. 11, p. 847. 

H.W H. 

Institutional history: 

In a 6-page editorial entitled "Opportunity in Adversity" in the June 1996 issue 
of the Journal of the American Optometric Association, vol. 67, pp. 307-312, Dr. 
Alden N. Haffner traces the history of the State College of ,Optometry of the State 
University of New York back to its origins with the closure of the prior optometric 
program at Columbia University. It also involved the interim operation of the 
Optometric Center of New York. 

" 

Managing Editor and 
Contributing Editor: 

Contributing Editors: 

* * * 

David A. Goss 
School of Optometry 
Indiana University 
Bloomington, IN 47405 
U.S.A. 

Henry W Hofstetter 
1050 Sassafras Circle 
Bloomington, IN 47408 
U.S.A. 

Douglas K. Penisten 
College of Optometry 
Northeastern State University 
Tahlequah, OK 74464 
U.S.A. 

H.W H. 


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