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The Story of Sylvia

By Victoria Coolidge

Sylvia is a little girl, ten years old, in the fourth grade in school.
She has a good brain and is an energetic worker, but until she learned
to see with central fixation, she was handicapped by defective
eyesight. According to her physical record card, her vision in
September, 1919, was 20/40 in each eye. On November 4, 1919, I tested
her eyes and found that 20/40 was the best that she could see with
either eye at that time.

On this day I gave her the first lesson in central fixation. By
alternately reading the Snellen card and closing her eyes to rest
them, she improved to 20/30. When she had demonstrated what an
improvement she could make by resting her eyes in this way, I showed
her how she could rest them even more by palming, that is, covering
her eyes with the palms of her hands laid gently over them, excluding
all light, but not pressing on the eyeballs. I asked her to do this as
many times as she could during the day, five minutes at a time, and I
gave her a piece of paper on which to write her name, the date, and
the number of times she palmed each day for a week.

The next week I went to visit Sylvia's school, and she showed me her
paper. She had palmed about eight times each day, except Saturday and
Sunday, when she had palmed fourteen times. I could see by the
expression on her face that she had a surprise in store for me, but I
was not prepared for such a surprise as followed. I had her stand six
feet from the Snellen test card, and she read every letter on it
perfectly. Then she stood ten feet away and read it just as well. "Now
stand back here," I said, pointing to a line twenty feet from the
card. Nothing daunted, and with the triumphant expression still
lighting up her face, she walked to the twenty-foot mark and read
every letter correctly through the fifteen line and some letters on
the ten line. I looked at Sylvia and then at her teacher. "Is this
Sylvia?" I asked, thinking I had been teaching the wrong child. The
teacher assured me that it was. Still skeptical, I looked up her
physical record card, and my own record, to be sure that I had read
the figures correctly. There they were, 20/40 on both.

At my next visit, December 18, Sylvia scorned to stand at ten feet,
and instead, walked immediately to the twenty-foot mark. This time she
was able to read all the letters so quickly and so confidently that
her teacher began to suspect that she had memorized them, and I must
confess that I began to think so, too. Therefore, I hung up the
Snellen card which belonged to the school and which had entirely
different letters. Sylvia had not seen this card since September when
her eyes were tested. She read the twenty line, which happened to be
the last line on the card, at twenty, twenty-six, and thirty-two feet.
Another day I took her out into the hall and she read the twenty line
on the same card, at forty feet, in a dim light, with only two errors.
In addition to this, she read diamond type, first at nine inches, the
nearest distance at which she could see it clearly, and at fifteen
inches, the farthest; and later at six and twenty inches. She also
read writing on the blackboard from the back of the room without any
difficulty.

To sum up Sylvia's case, then, she was able in two weeks' time to
improve her vision from 20/40, which is only half what is ordinarily
considered normal, to 20/10, which is double this standard. In five
weeks she was able to read a card having unfamiliar letters with a
vision of 40/20, and to read diamond type clearly at six inches and
also at twenty inches. The remarkable cure had been accomplished
through resting the eyes by palming for five minutes at a time about
nine times a day, by reading the Snellen test card every day from her
seat in the classroom, and from a point twenty feet from the card.

Sylvia, now looking for more worlds to conquer, has undertaken, with
characteristic energy, the cure of one of her schoolmates. She has
already succeeded in improving this child's vision from 20/30 to
20/20.

____

There should be a Snellen test card in every family and every school
classroom. When properly used it always improves the sight even when
it is already normal. Children or adults with errors of refraction, if
they have never worn glasses, are cured simply by reading every day
the smallest letters they can see at a distance of ten, fifteen, or
twenty feet.

For Sale By
The Central Fixation Publishing Company
Paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Cents
Cardboard (folding) . . . . . 75 Cents
Delivered

A limited number of reprints of articles by Dr. Bates published in
other medical journals also for sale. Send for list.

____

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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