Green Not Restful to the Eyes

1901

It seems as though cherished notions were no sooner on an apparently firm foundation than some inconsiderate iconoclast comes along and throws them down. People have for many years supposed that the color green was restful to human eyes and have been referred to the green grass and green foliage that nature has been so prodigal with for the benefit of weaned vision.

Now, according to a German professor of Berlin, nature wasn't thinking of human eyes when she made her profuse verdant display and that her color scheme was carried out absolutely regardless of the visual needs of humanity. He says that green does not protect the eye, and he denies that it has any beneficial effects whatever.

He declares that green paper, green shades, green glasses, green decorations and green umbrellas are all a mistake and that by increasing the green light we are simply provoking a nervous disturbance.

He says that each of the colors tires a different set of nerves of vision, and therefore looking at one particular color saves one set of nerves at the expense of another. The best method he says, is to dim all of the rays of light by smoked or gray glasses, which rest all of the optic nerves. — New York Herald.

Glasses for Players

1910

A recent instance of American ingenuity is afforded by the device of an optician for the relief of stage folk afflicted with defective eyesight.

Glasses fitted with tiny lenses are now made for the use of the actor so afflicted, who, in deference to the character he is enacting, may not wear the regulation eyeglasses or spectacles.

These special glasses fit close to the eyeball, and are hardly discernible from the front of the house, except when the footlights are at their highest point of illumination. The nosepiece, or bridge connecting the lenses is covered with flesh colored material which aide the illusion.

Odd Indian Foot Race

1917

A foot race among the Tarahumare Indians is a most picturesque scene, especially after nightfall, when the course is lit up by flaming torches carried by the eager friends of the runners, who steadily pursue their way, the only silent people in the excited crowd.

How in this weird fitful light the men contrive to keep the ball in view is a mystery. One would think that so small an object would be lost to the flickering torchlight; but Indians have wonderful eyes as well as wonderful muscles, and somehow the ball survives all perils and is there at the finish.

In these races the runners receive no prizes, but only honor and glory and the admiration of the women, which no doubt fully repays them. It is, however, customary for those who win wagers on the race to give some part of their winnings to the men who have won; but this is optional.


Splinterless Goggles

Splinterless goggles are a new development that is expected to be of great value in military gas masks and for aviators, as well as for machinists, welders and other workers requiring protection for the eyes.

The lenses consist of two layers of optical glass separated by a layer of celluloid, the whole being perfectly welded together. The product is claimed to have the advantages of ordinary glass without its dangerous splintering on being broken, and the strength of celluloid without its inflammability and lack of rigidity. The heat insulating effect of the celluloid is said also to prevent clouding by moisture.

Women First Forbidden To Wear Glasses

1896

Roger Bacon was the first to suggest the use of spectacles. When they came into use in Italy about the year 1825, on the recommendation of Allessandro di Spina, a monk of Pisa, women were forbidden to wear them, because it was thought such facial ornamentations would make them vain.


Trivia

The king of beasts in his native wilds often lives for 100 years. A lion in captivity in the Tower of London lived there seventy years, and his age was unknown when he was captured.

Sitting Bull's pony, which was in his possession when he was shot on the Standing Rock Reservation some five years ago, is now owned by a farmer in Stanley County, South Dakota.

Poland in the fourteenth century had a pigmy king, Ladislas the Short, who won more victories than any other northern monarch of his time, and who left a great name as a jurist, statesman and ruler.

The claim of being the youngest mother in the state of Oregon is made for Mrs. J. F. Magee, wife of the marshall of Mitchell Township, who is a little over fifteen years old and has a handsome and healthy boy baby.

Cherryfield, Me., has a fire company bearing the odd name of the Egg-Beater Fire Company. It appears to be a good company, too, for the citizens of Cherryfield have just presented to it a silver trumpet in recognition of recent good work in fighting a fire.

Young Child Gets Pig Eye, Corneal Transplant

1914

Operation in Baltimore Hospital the First of Its Kind in United f States.

Baltimore, Md. — What is believed to be the first operation of its kind in this country was performed at a local hospital when the cornea of a pig's eye was grafted on the sightless eye of a three-months-old boy.

It was said that previous operations, in which rabbits' eyes had been used, were unsuccessful, but that experiments with pigs' eyes had led scientists to believe that they were more adaptable. Two cases are said to be on record where the grafting of human cornea gave sight to totally blind eyes.

In the operation the pig was chloroformed, the eyeball taken out and the cornea cut from it. An extraordinarily fine needle and fine silk were used in sewing the cornea in place. The eye will remain bandaged for about a week.


How to Wed Happily

1914

Princeton, New Jersey — "To assure happy marriages all applicants for marriage licenses should file declarations of intentions a month before the license is granted," said Prof. R. M. Ross, in a lecture on social economics.

Monocle Fad Revived

1902

Single Eyeglass Habit is Coming In Again In London

A London Express representative has discovered the interesting fact that the monocle is slowly coming back again. Not since the days of Major Pendennis. and the Iron Duke, whom the old soldier tried to copy, has there been anything like the vogue which is now setting in in single eyeglasses.

Some who claim to know trace the origin of the new fashion to the fact that officers serving in South Africa have found them very serviceable; others put them down to a revival at Oxford and Cambridge.

At the establishment of Messrs. Ross of Bond street, who for years have supplied the elite with monocles, the reporter was informed that the new craze has been in progress for some time. It is an undoubted fact that there is a growing demand for a particular type of eyeglass manufactured in America which is peculiarly adapted to sensitive eyesight.

To a question whether the wearing of the single eyeglass was not so much a necessity as a foppish fad the reporter received the reply that of 100 men wearing monocles there would be perhaps about twenty wearing plain non-magnifying glasses — window pane — purely for ornament. The rest would require the use of the monocle to help the defective sight of one or the other eye.

The Whiskers of Cats

1878

Use of Whiskers to a Cat.

The sense which of all others is most deficient in the cat is that of smell. In this she differs most markedly from the dog. It is said that a piece of meat may be placed in close proximity to a cat, but that, if it is kept covered up she will fail to distinguish it.

This want is, however, partly compensated for by an extremely delicate sense of touch, which is possessed, to a remarkable extent, by the whiskers, or vibrissae, as well as by the general surface of the skin. These bristles are possessed to a greater or less extent by all cats, and are simply greatly developed hairs, having enormously swollen roots, covered with a layer of muscular fibres, with which delicate nerves are connected. By means of these latter, the slightest touch on the extremity of the whiskers, is instantly transmitted to the brain.

Those organs are of the greatest possible value to the cat in its nocturnal campaigns. When it is deprived of the guidance afforded by light it makes its way by the sense of touch, the fine whiskers touching against every object the cat passes, and thus acting in precisely the same manner as a blind man's stick, though with infinitely greater sensibility. Imagine a blind man with not one stick, but with a couple of dozen, of exquisite fineness, and these not held in his hand but embedded in his skin, so that his nerves come into direct contact with them instead of having a layer of skin between, and some notion may be formed of the way in which a cat uses its whiskers.

Eye Ball Removed, Doesn't Affect Sight

1940

BONHAM, Feb. 23.—(AP)—A piece of steel Friday stuck in Roy Taylor's eye and doctors were forced to remove his eye ball. The operation, however, did not cause loss of sight in the eye. He was already blind in that eye.

—Austin Statesman, Austin, TX, Feb. 23, 1940, page 3.