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My Headaches

By R. Ruiz Arnau, M.D.

From my childhood until about three years ago—I am now forty six—I
suffered from headaches, periods of intense supraorbital pain lasting
from twenty-four to thirty-six hours, unless relieved by repeated
doses of some derivative of antipyrin. A notable feature of these
attacks was their regularity; every six days—seven at the most—I would
awake with a feeling of discomfort near the right temple, the
forerunner of immediate torment. Unless relieved by the use of a
sedative, varying according to the time and also the results or lack
of results obtained from previous doses, the painful paroxysm, with
all its train of nausea, eructation, polyuria, excessive sensitiveness
to light and noise, and complete incapacity for physical or mental
activity, would run its course, producing a condition truly unbearable
for one or two days. In the intervals between the attacks I was
absolutely normal, and even accomplished more, perhaps, than the
ordinary person, thus compensating for the time lost by headache.
Under these conditions I went through my studies at the high school
and took my medical course. Thereafter, for a period of about twenty
years, I followed the profession of an active general practitioner,
wrote many articles and several books, always subject to the terrible
prospect of the period of migraine, which unfailingly appeared with
invariable regularity.

As I enjoyed, or thought I enjoyed, perfect vision, I lived to the age
of thirty-three accepting the idea of hereditary rheumatic migraine;
my mother suffered from similar headaches all her life, and so also
did my sisters. I had been told that if the headaches were due to such
a cause, they would be modified, or disappear, after thirty years of
age. With that hope I almost wished the years to pass quickly, so that
I might not only be free from an excessively painful malady, but be
able to devote myself to the intense mental labor to which my vocation
and tastes had always inclined me. My thirtieth birthday came and
went, however, with no cessation of the headaches and no diminution in
their severity.

WIth the passing of the years, too, came a desire to cultivate a
speciality requiring deep, constant and careful theoretical and
practical work. For this purpose it was necessary for me to read a
number of books printed in small type, and as my professional work,
then very arduous, left me but little free time, I had to read them at
all hours and in all places, often in moving vehicles. In the space of
a few months, my age being then thirty-four, I found my sight ruined,
constituting a new factor in my (supposedly) inherited disorders.
Immediately on beginning to read I would experience ocular fatigue and
a feeling of discomfort in the eyeballs, and this aggravated the
headaches, although I was now in the fourth decade of my life, the
period at which I had hoped for relief.

I had recourse, naturally, to an oculist, a friend of mine to whom I
was accustomed to send special cases, and with whose aptness and
efficiency I had always been satisfied. He examined my eyes with great
care, and concluded that I had a slight hypermetropic error in both,
with a slight degree of astigmatism in one. He prescribed lenses to
correct only half my defect, as is customary in such cases, and after
several changes, owing to the difficulty of fitting the astigmatic
eye, I secured a pair of glasses which I was able to endure for a
year.

Their use convinced me that the head troubles from which I had
suffered during my whole life, in spite of their mathematical
regularity and their supposedly rheumatic origin, had never been
anything but an eloquent expression of what Anglo-Saxons term
"eyestrain." As soon as I began to wear the glasses all the features
of the old pains were radically modified. Their regularity ceased, and
they were converted into painful disturbances of irregular occurrence,
connected with work requring use of the eyes at the near-point and
completely independent of other causes. If I did not read, I would be
all right indefinitely; if I used my eyes for close work for even a
short time, I knew that I would suffer for it, some hours later, with
a period of ocular pain or headache. In a word, the trouble became a
necessary consequence of visual activity and lost its old appearance
of a syndrome, established, recurrent, classical, only remotely
connected with the use of the eyes.

But the fact remained that the wearing of glasses had not cured my
malady. I had, it is true, got rid of the old periodical migraine, but
I was left with perpetual attacks of ocular and supraorbital pain,
almost continuous, though never very intense. This change I almost
regretted; for when I suffered from periodical headaches I had had
five good consecutive days, during which it was possible for me to do
sustained intellectual work. Now prolonged application was impossible,
and I feared that an ailment resulting in almost continuous pain
would, in time, lead to a serious state of neurasthenia.

At thirty-eight years of age my trouble began to be complicated with
presbyopia; and here began, if I may so so, the second Odyssey of my
ocular problem. In order to read I had to increase the strength of my
glasses, and this involved the use of hideous bifocals. With three
different pairs of glasses in my pocket and one on my nose—one for
distance, one for reading, a tinted pair to moderate the intense
sunlight of the tropics where I lived, and bifocals for special
occasions—I found my troubles daily increasing. I could not escape
from the optician, who was continually changing the refractive power
of the lenses, as none of them ever suited me, and I did not cease to
annoy my good friend, the oculist, who, with singular patience,
listened to my complaints and tried to help me.

Once during this time I had occasion to visit New York, and while
there I consulted a famous eye specialist. In no way was he able to
mitigate my sufferings, and I returned, more confused than ever, to my
country, Porto Rico, and almost decided, in view of the increasing
difficulty of keeping up the struggle, to give up professional life
and devote myself to some work of a rural nature which would not
require of my poor eyes the insupportable effort of reading the small
print of periodicals and medical books.

I must add that at this time I suffered from several attacks of
swelling of the upper eyelid of one or the other eye, lasting for four
or five days and having no appreciable cause; that on two occasions I
had an inflammation of the margins of the lids, followed the second
time by a combined inflammation of both eyes and lids; while the last
condition left after it a little ulcer of the right cornea, near the
pupil, which required more than two months treatment on the part of my
patient and capable oculist.

Another detail which I do not wish to forget is that during the whole
time that I wore glasses, about nine years, and even for some months
after discarding them, I frequently noticed the phenomenon known as
"floating specks." These I never noticed before wearing glasses.

I had reached a state bordering on desperation when, in September,
1916, professional work took me again to New York, accompanying one of
my patients to whom I had recommended X-ray treatment by a well-known
specialist of the great city. On the occasion of our visits the old
doctor and I used to discuss the latest advances in electrotherapy,
and he called my attention to some notable cases of cure brought about
by this means. One day it occured to me to say to him:
  "Well, friend doctor, all that is very fine, but the wonder that is
to cure my particular ill has not yet been discovered."
  "What do you mean? What is the matter with you?"
I recounted at great length the history of my eyes. The doctor
laughed, left his office for a few minutes, and on returning said to
me:
  "Why, yes, it has been discovered. Read this pamphlet, take my
card, and go to see the author."
It was an article by Dr. William H. Bates, of New York, published a
few months previously in the New York Medical Journal, and entitled:
The Cure of Defective Sight by Treatment Without Glasses, or Radical
Cure of Errors of Refraction by Means of Central Fixation. The reader
can understand the eagerness with which I read this pamphlet, but I
must confess that it caused me both surprise and disappointment. The
author affirmed, as the readers of this magazine already know, that
errors of refraction—myopia, hypermetropia, and astigmatism—so far
from being permanent conditions due to deformaties of the eyeball
congenital or acquired, and only to be corrected by glasses, are
caused by a vicious contraction of the outside muscles of the ocular
globe and may be cured by treatment leading to relaxation of these
muscles. In a word the eyeball is not inextensible, and the lens is
not a factor in accommodation. Thus two fundamental dogmas of the
doctrine established by Helmholtz and others fall to the ground. This,
I reflected, could only be the work of an unbalanced mind or of a
genius, and unbalanced minds are so abundant and geniuses so rare,
nowadays, that the latter did not seem probable. Imbued, like all
doctors, with the idea that accommodation is brought about by a change
in the curvative of the crystalline lens, I felt, as I read, the
tremendous influence of the old school of physiological optics, with
all the authority of its founders, and all the weight of things long
established, accepted by the great majority and sustained by the
immense mass of vested interests developed under their shadow; and I
said to myself: "All this seems to me anatomically impossible."

And yet it inspired me with hope. After all, I thought, why should
things not be accomplished in the eye as they are in the photographic
camera, in which, in order to obtain pictures at different distances,
the distance between the lens and the sensitive plate is shortened or
lengthened. If, in a kodak, one were to imitate that which, according
to the accepted theory, occurs in the eye, it would be necessary to
put in a new lens every time one desired to change the focus, since
there is no known device that can modify the power of a lens. Leaving
the accepted theories out of consideration for the moment, it seemed
to me more logical to conceive of accommodation as Bates described it
than it had appeared to Helmholtz. After some hesitation, therefore, I
decided to consult the author of the revolutionary pamphlet.

I gave him a detailed account of my ailment, begging him, on finishing
the tale, to tell me frankly if he considered it incurable, as in that
case I would give up my career definitely, and live in the country. I
expected that my case, which I supposed to be exceptional, would
present to him a most difficult clinical problem, and I was astonished
when he said:
  "Is that all?"
  "What! You don't think that is much, Dr. Bates?" I replied,
somewhat provoked, as I remembered my long years of suffering.
  "You will be cured, and soon," was his reply; a reply firm,
decided, categorical, which for the moment increased my confusion.
Dr. Bates then explained to me that my eyes were in no way abnormal,
except for having lost the power of central fixation many years
before. Mental strain had brought with it ocular strain. I had
contracted the muscles of the eyeball abnormally in doing close work,
and with the commencement of the presbyopic age the trouble had been
considerably accentuated.

It required only a few treatments by means of rest, practice with the
Snellen test card, and the cultivation of the memory of a black period
with the eyes alternately closed and open (glasses having, of course,
been discarded), to convince me of the truth of this diagnosis, and
naturally, of its logical basis. By a continuation of the same
treatment my headaches were soon cured, and after many months of
practice my lost power of central fixation was restored and I regained
the normal vision I have since enjoyed. I can now read diamond type at
six inches, and can devote to reading or writing as much time as I
wish. The intense rays of electric light, which formerly were
unberable to me, no longer cause me any inconvenience, and I even
enjoy looking at them for long periods. I can also look at the sun
itself for some seconds without the least discomfort, to the great
admiration of my friends, who, although they believe their sight to be
normal, cannot do this.

I have, in short, learned to look at things without staring, so that
every object seen seems to have a slight movement, caused by the
unconscious shifting of the eye, a phenomenon discovered by Bates and
by virtue of which the point regarded changes rapidly and
continuously.

I have been able to demonstrate in myself the seven truths of normal
sight, formulated by Bates; truths in the light of which the old ideas
of the refraction of the eye crumble irremediably; truths completely
verifiable by every truly impartial and scientific mind which is
emancipated from the tendency to persist in error solely because it is
supported by authority, even such an authority as the immortal
Helmholtz; truths demonstrated by careful, repeated and varied
observations—by scientific experiments upon animals, and above all by
the study of images, obtained, after much labor and many failures,
from the lens, cornea, iris and sclera. The powerful electric light
employed for the latter purpose is evidently more adequate than the
candle used by Purkinje for the study of the celebrated images to
which his name has been given, and it suffices to compare—with an open
mind—two photographs of images upon the lens, obtained with the eye
focussed, respectively, at the distance and the near-point, to become
convinced that accommodation is accomplished by the lengthening of the
eyeball—through the unmistakable action of the oblique muscles—and
that we have here one of the most beautiful and significant
achievements of the century.

And not only have I demonstrated these truths in myself, but I have
cured some patients and improved many. Among the former was the very
notable case of a young printer, who, although only slightly
hypermetropic, was easily fatigued by the close work demanded by his
calling. Half an hour of such work brought on a severe frontal
headache, growing in intensity up to midday, when he was obliged to
suspend his labors. After only three weeks of treatment by the methods
described his troubles completely disappeared. To-day he not only
works all day without inconvenience, but even works overtime, with
great economic advantage to himself.

Another case was that of a lady, a lawyer, who had been told that the
sight of one eye was almost lost, and who could practically do no
continuous work without severe headaches. She wore a pair of large
dark-tinted lenses constantly, in order to protect her eyes from the
tropical sunlight, and these were so disfiguring that they made her
very conspicuous and, naturally, caused her much annoyance. Treatment
by relaxation soon cured her headache and other ailments, and she
became able to fulfill her duties effeciently as a secretary to a high
judicial officer in Porto Rico. At present she occupies an important
position as a lecturer in one of the Y. W. C. A.'s of the United
States, and according to recent advices her sight and general health
continue very satisfactory.

Many of my friends who witnessed and sympathized with my sufferings
and saw me wear numerous spectacles, are now for the most part
presbyopic, and use glasses for reading. Overcome by the evidence of
my case, they only await a period of leisure in order to take the
treatment, in which they believe, but which they erroneously suppose
to demand effort and time. They find their problems solved temporarily
by glasses and continue to wear them. But the patients who never find
a pair of lenses satisfactory, and who pass half their lives in the
optician's office, who suffer from troublesome ailments of various
kinds resulting from their eye troubles;  these have no choice but to
have recourse to the new truth and the new methods, which are certain
to solve their problems, not temporarily but permanently. It is they,
above all, who will publish the glad tidings—they and the school
children under twelve, who having, as a rule, not accustomed their
eyes to glasses, and being free from the misconceptions that handicap
older patients, respond with incredible rapidity to the new methods—
methods as simple as they are effective, and both preventative and
curative of visual defects.

In spite of indifference, in spite of the coldness with which new
truths are received—the great majority not deigning even to discuss
them—I have absolute confidence in the early acceptance of this
wonderful discovery, so simple, and in its practical application, so
fruitful. There will not be lacking dispassionate ahd impartial minds
to verify and propagate it. The number of the cured, constantly
increasing, will become at last like a tidal wave, overwhelming all
opposition. Truth must conquer in the end, removing the mountains of
error and prejudice.

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Better Eyesight
A monthly magazine devoted to the prevention and cure of imperfect
sight without glasses
Copyright, 1920, by the Central Fixation Publishing Company
Editor—W. H. Bates, M.D.
Publisher—Central Fixation Publishing Co.
$2.00 per year, 20 cents per copy
342 West 42nd Street, New York, N. Y.
Vol. II - May, 1920 - No. 5
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