Ezid Low Vision Aids

Optical Illusions
An optical illusion is something that deceives the eye by appearing to be other than it is. They use patterns, colour and light to create the deception.
We have five main senses – sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell – however most information we receive from the world around us comes via our eyes. This might make sight the most important of all the senses, although let us not underestimate our ability hear a cow moo, touch a feather, smell a beautiful ros...e or taste a hot apple pie.
Vision depends on our eyes to see and on our brain to convert what we see into images.
When we look at an optical illusion we may think we are ‘seeing things’. Are our eyes deceiving us?
An illusion is proof that we don't always see what we think we do because of the way our brain interprets the image, we are looking at something that confuses our brain.
To demonstrate, I particularly like this quote from on http://www.archimedes-lab.org:
Unfortunately (or fortunately?), seeing isn’t some kind of direct perception of reality. Atcually, our bairns are cnostanlty itnerperting, corrceting and gviing srtuctrues to the viusal ipnut form our eeys.
A mirage and a rainbow are not illusions, they are known as optical phenomena. They are events you can see because of light from the sun or moon interacting with the atmosphere, clouds, water and dust.
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A brief explanation - Diabetic Retinopathy
I have just heard about one of my relatives, who is diabetic, being diagnosed with a vision problem called Diabetic Retinopathy, so I have done some research and here is a short explanation that may help you or someone you know.
Diabetic retinopathy is a complication of diabetes which affects the tiny blood vessels in the light-sensitive tissue called the retina that lines the back of the eye. The retina detects light and converts it...
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What is low vision?
I have read two definitions:
• “Low vision is the term used to refer to a visual impairment that is not correctable through surgery, pharmaceuticals, glasses or contact lenses. It is often characterised by partial sight, such as blurred vision, blind spots or tunnel vision. Low vision can impact people of all ages, but is primarily associated with older adults.”... and,
• “Low vision is ‘not enough vision to do whatever it is you need to do’, which can vary from person to person”.
Your vision can deteriorate with age; however, vision loss does not have to be an accepted part of growing old. A yearly eye examination by an optometrist or vision specialist can identify potential vision problems before they occur. In my case a simple trip to the optometrist to organise a new pair of reading glasses revealed the fact I have Age Related Macular Degeneration. I still needed the new reading glasses, and I was given a referral to an eye specialist who is now treating my macular disease.
Because of this early diagnosis the specialist has told me “I will have very useful vision for a long time”. I am now 63 and a bit so ‘a long time’ sounds like very good news to me.
Some of the more common causes of low vision include:
Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD): AMD is the leading cause of vision loss, for example in the USA it accounts for nearly 50% of all low vision cases. It is caused when the macular breaks down which can cause the loss of central vision.
Glaucoma: is the second major cause of low vision and it can occur without warning. It is a complicated disease in which the optic nerve at the back of the eye is damaged which leads to progressive, irreversible vision loss
Diabetic Retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy affects blood vessels in the retina at the back of the eye. It is a major cause of blindness and it is the most common cause of vision loss among people with diabetes.
Cataracts: Most of the eye’s lens is made of water and protein, and the protein is arranged in an exact way to keep the lens clear. As we grow older some of the protein may clump together creating a cataract. Over time, it may grow larger and cloud more of the lens, making it harder to see.
Vision is also an important factor in maintaining balance. Since 2011 In the USA the rate of life-threatening injuries after a fall since has nearly doubled when compared to the previous decade.
It is a shock when you discover your vision loss cannot be reversed, however please remember it can be treated. So, organise the professional help that will provide you with the strategies and treatments to keep you active and safe. Also, why not have a look at the low vision aids we have created to assist in some of your most common daily activities, you will find everything you need here: www.ezidlabels.com.
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The Braille Alphabet
Louis Simon Braille (1809 - 1852) was born in Coupvray, France, the fourth child and only son of Simon-René Braille, a saddle and horse tack maker, and his wife Monique.
When Braille was three years old, he injured one of his eyes while playing with his father’s leather making tools. This resulted in both his eyes becoming infected, and by the time Braille was five, he was completely blind. Although there were few options for blind children his parents... wanted Braille to be educated, first at the local village school then via a scholarship to attend the National Institute for Blind Youth in Paris.
This was the first school of its kind to educate blind students using a combination of oral instruction and raised-print books developed by the school's founder. Braille did well at his studies and became an accomplished musician. And the crude raised-print books gave Braille the idea that a tactile alphabet would allow blind people to read and write.
In 1821, a retired soldier named Charles Barbier visited the school to share his invention called sonography. This was a complicated code used by soldiers to write and decode messages at night, using a system of twelve raised dots, without having to use a light. The army decided the system was too complicated, however Barbier thought the system might assist blind people.
Braille and some of the other students recognised the possibilities of sonography and over the next three years Braille worked to develop his much simpler system using six dots lined up in two columns of three dots each.
Braille became an apprentice teacher at the school when he was 19 and in 1837 the school published the first book in braille. However, the school did not adopt the system. Nonetheless, by 1850, when tuberculosis forced Louis Braille to retire from teaching, his six-dot method was on its way to widespread acceptance.
Louis Braille died of his illness on January 6, 1852, in Paris, at the age of 43. Today, in most languages, braille is the standard form of communication used by blind people.
“Access to communication in the widest sense is access to knowledge, and that is vitally important for us if we are not to go on being despised or patronised by condescending sighted people. We do not need pity, nor do we need to be reminded that we are vulnerable. We must be treated as equals – and communication is the way we can bring this about.” Louis Braille 1841
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Albrecht von Graefe
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Albrecht von Graefe (1828 – 1870) has become known as the father of modern ophthalmology.
Albrecht’s father, Carl Ferdinand von Graefe, was a famous German surgeon and a general in the Prussian army. Young von Graefe became an orphan at age 12, however, as a gifted student, he was able to follow in his father's footsteps by enrolling in medical school at the University of Berlin in 1843 when he was 15. He graduated four years later... and then spent most of the next three years travelling across Europe studying and working with some of the leading ophthalmologists of that period.
His experiences allowed von Graefe to return to Berlin where he opened his first clinic in November, 1850. His talent underpinned the rapid growth of this clinic and in the first year he treated nearly 2,000 patients. He treated poor patients for free.
In the search for better ways to diagnose and treat his patients von Graefe designed new instruments including one of the first devices used to measure intraocular pressure. As his skills and knowledge grew he moved to larger clinic and was soon treating over 10,000 patients a year.
In January 1854, at the age of 26, von Graefe published the first issue of his ophthalmologic journal Archiv fur Ophthalmologie. Remarkably this journal is still published today under the title Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology. Von Graefe went onto to contribute to other journals, and in 1857 he helped established the Deutsche Ophthalmologische Gesellschaft which was the world’s first ophthalmic society. Today the society sponsors the Graefe medal for achievements in the field of ophthalmology
Recognition of von Graefe's achievements was also given by the hundreds of students who he trained. In 1857 von Graefe reached the peak of his career when he reported a cure for glaucoma using iridectomy which is a procedure to remove part of the iris.
In 1861 he became engaged to Anna, Countess Knuth. They married in 1862 and went on to have five children. Von Graefe also contracted acute tuberculous pleurisy in 1861. This did not slow him down and his work load continued to grow. Eventually the disease spread to his lungs and throat but he could continue to work by using morphine to control the pain. However, he eventually succumbed to the disease and died on July 20, 1870 at the age of 42, his wife died two years later at the age of 30.
His image lives on in a statue that was erected by the Berlin Medical Society in 1882 in front of the Charité Hospital, and a Graefe Museum in the Heidelberg eye clinic.
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The eye test chart was designed by Herman Snellen (1834 – 1908) in 1862. Herman was a Dutch ophthalmologist and he developed the chart as an aid to measure an individual’s vision. Snellen earned his medical degree at Utrecht University in the Netherlands in 1858. He specialised in ophthalmology after completing his degree and in 1877 was appointed a professor of ophthalmology at the University. [ 320 more words ]
http://blog.ezidlabels.com/…/03/who-cre ated-the-eye-test-ch…

Who Created The Eye Test Chart?
The eye test chart was designed by Herman Snellen (1834 – 1908) in 1862. Herman was a Dutch ophthalmologist and he developed the chart as an aid to measure an individual’s vision.
Snellen earned his medical degree at Utrecht University in the Netherlands in 1858. He specialised in ophthalmology after completing his degree and in 1877 was appointed a professor of ophthalmology at the University. His research was based on causes of low vision inc...luding glaucoma and astigmatism (a fault in the shape of the eye’s lens).
Other versions of eye test charts had been developed previously however these charts were never standardised. They used fonts of different sizes and shapes and did not necessarily provide an accurate assessment of a person's real vision.
The British Army placed a large order for the Snellen chart in 1863, and from there it quickly became the global standard for almost 100 years. It is also the standard on which all more recent eye test chart systems are based.
Snellens' innovation was to use specially designed characters, known as optotypes, instead of an existing, standard font. The Snellen optotype was based on a 5 x 5 grid and this grid was used to create a limited character set of 9 – 10 letters. The lines were a standard thickness and letters were all the same shape.
This allowed the chart to be reproduced easily and provide accurate results wherever it was used.
The Snellen chart normally includes eleven lines of block letters. The first line comprises a single large letter, usually the letter E. Each of the following lines have increasing numbers of letters, each progressively smaller in size.
The Snellen eye test determines the visual acuity (clarity of vision) of an individual based on which is the smallest row of letters they can read.
With the traditional Snellen eye chart, the individual who can read the row of letters fourth from the bottom of the chart at 20 feet has 20/20 vision. The next three lines provide a measurement of 20/15, 20/10 and 20/5 vision. Not many individuals have 20/10 or better however many animals do, especially birds of prey, which may have an acuity of 20/5 or even better.
Testing with the Snellen eye chart helps reveal visual problems and symptoms of other medical conditions. However it is only one component of a complete eye examination.
Images courtesy Wikipedia
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The Blind Benefactor Joseph Pulitzer - (1847 - 1911)
Joseph Pulitzer was an American newspaper editor and publisher who helped establish the design of contemporary newspapers. However, he is probably better known for posthumously establishing the Pulitzer Prizes (along with William Randolph Hearst). He is also one of the most historic figures to have detached retinas, which eventually lead to him becoming blind at the age of 42.
Joseph was born in Hungary then moved to Buda...pest with his family when his father retired. He tried to join the army at age 17 and was rejected because of his bad eyesight and frail health by the Austrian and British armies and the French Foreign Legion. He then moved to the United States in 1864 as a recruit for the Union Army in the American Civil War. After the war, he moved to New York then to St. Louis where he worked as a deckhand, a hack driver, a grave digger and briefly as a waiter.
His big break came when he joined a railroad company to record land entitlements. This led him to law school and he was admitted to the bar in 1868. He also became an American citizen in 1867. Pulitzer married Kate Davis in 1878 and they had seven children.
Pulitzer’s newspaper publishing efforts combined investigative journalism with publicity stunts which were very popular with his readers. He also introduced entertainment innovations such as comics, sports coverage and women’s fashion coverage into his newspapers which created the journalistic style that is still in use today.
In 1887 failing eyesight and his other illnesses forced Pulitzer to abandon the management of his newspapers. In 1890 he gave up his editorship of them as well however he continued to monitor their editorial policies.
Pulitzer died of heart failure in 1911 at the age of 64 and was buried in New York. in his will Pulitzer endowed the Columbia University School of Journalism which opened 1912. The school now oversees the Pulitzer Prize, an award given to those who excel in journalism, literature, and music. This has been awarded annually since 1917.
Joseph Pulitzer suffered from poor health and bad eyesight most of his life. His eyesight problems were caused by detached retinas in both his eyes. The retina is the light-sensitive layer of tissue that lines the inside of the eye and sends visual messages through the optic nerve to the brain. When the retina detaches, it is lifted or pulled from its normal position, see diagram below. It is caused by inflammation, abnormal blood vessels, diseases such as diabetes or injury. If not promptly treated by surgery, retinal detachment can cause blindness.
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Famous Ophthalmologists – Fred Hollows
Professor Frederick Cossom "Fred" Hollows was a New Zealand and Australian ophthalmologist who is well known for providing quality eye care to those in need throughout the world. His work has been instrumental to advancing the number of people who are now able to receive eye care and in the process he has helped over one million people regain their site.
Fred was born on April 9, 1929 in Dunedin, New Zealand. After working a summer job i...n a mental hospital he realised that he wanted to help people in another way. This lead to him getting his BA degree at Victoria University of Wellington and his medical degree from the Otago Medical School.
Fred Hollows’ first job was assisting eye surgeons at New Zealand’s Auckland and Tauranga hospitals. He gained experience in the latest medical technology at these hospitals and was eventually able to perform surgery.
In 1961 he moved to the UK to begin his post-graduate training in ophthalmology at Moorfields Eye Hospital. He completed his fellowship at the Royal College of Surgeons and began working as an ophthalmology registrar in Wales
In 1965, he moved to Australia, where he was appointed as the Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of New South Wales. From 1965 – 1992 he chaired the ophthalmology division overseeing the teaching divisions of the university and Sydney’s Prince of Wales and Prince Henry hospitals.
In 1968, he began to turn his focus on the high number of Australian Aborigines with eye disorders. In 1976 he initiated the National Trachoma and Eye Health Program which had a dramatic impact on reducing eye disease and blindness across the aboriginal communities.
During the 1980s and 1990s Fred continued his work through the poor communities in Nepal, Eritrea and Vietnam. He set up training programs so local technicians could perform the surgery and he organised intraocular lens laboratories to manufacture lenses economically.
Fred’s lifelong goal was to provide high quality eye care for those who, for some reason, were not able to obtain it and in 1992 he helped establish the Fred Hollows Foundation to meet these goals.
Fred’s lifelong work continues through the many clinics he established for the underprivileged and his foundation. In 1990, he was named the ‘Australian of the Year’ because of the advances in eye health that he brought to the underprivileged.
After fighting a long battle with renal cancer the philanthropic doctor passed away on 10 February, 1993.
by John Owens - john@ezidlabels.com www.ezidlabels.com
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A Short History of Contact Lenses
Some believe that the sketches made by the artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci about 1508 were intended to indicate contact lenses. He experimented by dissecting eyes and developing his own theories about eyes and how they work. His ideas were at odds with his peers when he correctly concluded that vision is a result of the eye receiving rays of light.
In 1636 Frenchman René Descartes (1596 – 1650) arrived at the innovative idea of corne...al lenses by placing a tube full of water over the cornea to correct a person’s vision. His idea was that this would theoretically lengthen the eye’s axis and therefore increase the size of the image. The practical problem with this idea was that the tube would have been too thick to allow blinking.
The first contact lenses to have been worn were invented by the German Ophthalmologist Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick (1852 - 1937) around 1888. Fick was one of the first to actually experiment with contact lenses. They were made from heavy brown glass and he tested them on rabbits first, then himself and a group of volunteers. Fick's lens was large, unwieldy, and could only be worn for a couple of hours at a time.
The others experimenting with contact lenses at the same time were German glassblower F.A. Muller, an optician from Paris called Edouard Kalt, and August Müller (1864 - 1949), a medical student from Germany who corrected his own severe myopia with a more convenient glass-blown scleral contact lens of his own manufacture in 1888. However, his lenses were difficult to fit, painful to wear, and the eye had to be anaesthetised before fitting the lens.
The lenses developed by these men were called Glass Scleral lenses as they were designed to cover the entire corneal surface and rest on the white, or sclera, of the eye. They were the standard form of contact lens until the invention of Perspex and Plexiglas in the 1930s.
These plastics made it possible to produce lightweight, transparent contact lenses that were easy to manufacture, unbreakable and scratch resistant which quickly made glass contact lenses obsolete. However, they were still scleral lenses covering the entire eye and could only be worn for a few hours per day.
The first "corneal" lenses were developed in 1948 by an English optical technician called Kevin Touhy. Apparently in the process of sanding down a plastic lens the lens broke leaving only the portion that covered the cornea intact. So he sanded off the sharp edges and fitted the lens to his own eye. He discovered that the lens still worked and stayed in place even if he blinked. His ‘invention’ was the forerunner of the lens technologies that exist today.
by John Owens john@ezidlabels.com www.ezidlabels.com
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What Is Glaucoma?
Glaucoma is a complicated disease in which the optic nerve at the back of the eye is damaged which leads to progressive, irreversible vision loss. Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of blindness.
There are two main types of glaucoma: primary open angle glaucoma and acute angle closure glaucoma.
... The most common form is primary open angle glaucoma. This is often associated with an increase in eye pressure. Eye pressure refers to the tissue pressure within the human eye and is typically caused by the continual drainage and production of aqueous humour.
The aqueous humour is the watery fluid between the cornea and the lens, see the diagram below. It maintains the pressure needed to inflate the eye and provides nutrition for the central cornea and lens as they do not have their own blood supply. It circulates from behind the iris into drainage channels between the iris and the cornea. If it cannot drain away correctly, then there can be a fluid build-up leading to a rise in eye pressure and ultimately damage to the optic nerve.
Eye pressure is usually shown as millimetres of mercury (mm Hg). The standard eye pressure should measure less than 21 mm Hg. Ocular hypertension occurs when the eye pressure increases. Vision damage occurs very slowly and the first signs may be the loss of some parts of the visual field, most commonly the peripheral, or side vision.
Acute angle closure glaucoma occurs when the drainage system becomes completely blocked and the fluid pressure rises quickly as more fluid continues to be made. The usual symptoms are sudden and severe eye pain, a red eye and blurred, haloed or decreased vision. Sufferers may feel sick and vomit. It can rapidly lead to blindness in the affected eye if not treated promptly.
Glaucoma can affect young children also. It is called congenital, paediatric or infantile glaucoma. It is usually diagnosed within the first year of life. Symptoms include enlarged eyes, cloudiness of the cornea and sensitivity to light.
Glaucoma can be treated with eye drops, pills, laser surgery, traditional surgery or a combination of these methods. All are intended to decrease eye pressure and, thereby, protect the optic nerve. The goal of any treatment is to prevent loss of vision, as vision loss from glaucoma is irreversible. The good news is that glaucoma can be managed if detected early, and with medical and/or surgical treatment, most people with glaucoma will not lose their sight.
By John Owens - john@ezidlabels.com www.ezidlabels.com
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Who were the real Three Blind Mice?? part 2
The rhyme as we know it was published in 1842 by James Orchard Halliwell. Some years later (maybe around 1900) an illustrated children’s book by John W. Ivimey with the title The Complete Version of Ye Three Blind Mice was also published. And the famous words are:
Three blind mice. Three blind mice.... See how they run. See how they run. They all ran after the farmer's wife, Who cut off their tails with a carving knife, Did you ever see such a sight in your life, As three blind mice?
This version turns the mice into mischievous characters who seek adventure, eventually being taken in by a farmer whose wife chases them from the house and into a bramble bush, which blinds them. Soon after, their tails are removed by the farmers’ wife using a modern translation of lines from the original verse. The story ends with them using a tonic to grow new tails and recover their eyesight, learning a trade (making wood chips, according to one illustration in Ivimey’s book), buying a house and living happily ever after.
While the words to the rhyme have not been changed since Halliwell’s book was published, the tune has been used and adapted by a number of composers. Even James Bond has had an impact on the rhyme as the soundtrack for the 1962 film Dr. No features "Kingston Calypso", a calypso version of "Three Blind Mice" with new lyrics that reference the three villainous characters in the film. And the Three Stooges used a jazz interpretation of Three Blind Mice as the theme song for their comedic short films. The rhyme has even found its way into sport. Basketball and hockey have three referees and the term "Three Blind Mice" is sometimes used as a derogatory expression for their poor performance.
By John Owens - john@ezidlabels.com - www.ezidlabels.com
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A Short history of Bifocals and Multifocals
One lens with multiple powers.
Multifocal eyeglass lenses contain two or more lens powers to help you see objects at all distances if you lose the ability to naturally change the focus of your eyes due to age. This condition is called Presbyopia and it is caused by the hardening of the lens of the eye. This causes the eye, when looking at close objects, to focus light behind the retina instead of on the retina.
... Presbyopia occurs from age 40 and everyone is affected to some degree. Many people complain their arms have ‘become too short’ because they cannot hold reading material in a comfortable position. Other symptoms include eyestrain, blurred vision when looking at one object up close then another object further away, and difficulty reading small print.
Bifocal and multifocal lenses provide clear vision at all distances. Bifocals have two prescriptions in the same lens and multifocal have a range of powers; distance, intermediate and near vision. Your pupil alternates between the powers as your gaze moves up or down. The top part of the lens is for distance vision and the bottom part for near vision.
The invention of bifocals has long been credited to Benjamin Franklin (1705 – 1790) the American politician, statesman and diplomat. He was also an inventor so this may be true, or it could be a myth. He was certainly one of the first to wear bifocals. Franklin was involved in the optical business before he left America. He imported spectacles and records of his advertisements in newspapers still exist. From the mid 1750s to the mid 1770s he spent much of his time in London and it was during this time that he was first said to have invented bifocals.
It is likely that London opticians were making ‘split lenses’ also known as ‘divided lenses’ for artists including Benjamin West (1738 – 1820) and Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 – 1792). Both these men were in London at the same time as Benjamin Franklin and both of them have also been named as the inventor of bifocals.
There is also one recorded example of bifocal use in the animal world, Thermonectus marmoratus. This is a species of diving beetle also known as the sunburst diving beetle and the spotted diving beetle. These beetles live in ponds and lakes in Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico. If their water source dries up they fly to a new one. Adult male beetles are about ½” or 1cm in length and females are slightly bigger. They are unique because they have, within their principal eyes, two retinas and two separate focal planes so they can switch their vision from close to distance when they are searching for food.
John Owens john@ezidlabels.com www.ezidlabels.com
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How Do Your Eyes Work?
It may seem a bit odd as your brain produces the image you ‘see’, but your eyes collect all the information the brain uses to create the image. They take pictures of the world around you and send them to your brain, and your brain then works out what your eyes are seeing.
The cornea is the see-through skin covering the front of your eyes. It bends, or refracts, the rays that pass through the round hole of the pupil.
... The iris controls the amount of light entering your eye. It is the coloured part of the eye surrounding the front of the pupil.
The rays then pass through the lens, focuses them on the retina.
The retina, which sits at the back of the eye, is a thin layer of tissue containing millions of tiny light-sensing nerve cells. These nerve cells are called rods and cones because of their distinct shapes. Rods ‘see’ black and white and cones are responsible for colour vision.
Cones are concentrated in the centre of the retina, in an area called the macula, and function best in relatively bright light. Rods are located outside the macula and extend all the way to the edge of the retina. They provide peripheral vision and allow the eyes to detect motion and help us see in dim light and at night.
Once light meets the retina the process of sight begins. They turn the picture into an electrical message for the brain. The optic nerve sends these messages to a part of the brain called the thalamus via the optic nerve. This area combines information from both your eyes and then sends it to another area of your brain called the visual cortex. This is a specialised part of the brain which processes visual information and is located at the back of the brain. It interprets the electrical signals to obtain information about the object's colour, shape and depth. Other parts of the brain then put this information together to create the whole picture.
“Humans have five senses: the eyes to see, the tongue to taste, the nose to smell, the ears to hear, and the skin to touch. By far the most important organs of sense are our eyes. We perceive up to 80 per cent of all impressions by means of our sight. And if other senses such as taste or smell stop working, it's the eyes that best protect us from danger”. Quote from www.zeiss.com.au
John Owens john@ezidlabels.com www.ezidlabels.com
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Famous Artists with Bad Eyesight
Oscar-Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (1840 - 1926) was a founder of French Impressionist painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise). He was also one of many famous painters who suffered from bad eyesight, this list includes: Paul Cezanne, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, El Greco, August Renoir and Vincent Van Gogh. It is well known that all of these artists where fac...ing a decline in their vision just as they reached their heights of artistic achievement.
Although Monet was diagnosed with cataracts in both eyes in 1912, at the age of 72, his visual problems began much earlier. Soon after 1905 (age 65) he began to experience changes in his perception of colour.
Monet wrote of his growing frustration with his deteriorating vision, describing how he was forced to memorize where the colours were placed on his palette. He also had to rely on reading the labels on the tubes of paint. In 1914 he wrote in his correspondence that colours no longer had the same intensity. "Reds had begun to look muddy," he wrote. "My painting was getting more and more darkened."
Monet sought help from many ophthalmologists including the French ophthalmologist Charles Coutela, M.D, who prescribed eye drops, and cataract surgery when Monet was 82.
Coutela also fitted Monet with spectacles designed for cataracts which allowed Monet to read and continue his correspondence.
Monet’s great sensitivity to detail, light and colour was central to his early works. His later works are typified by indistinct coloration, large brush strokes, and an absence of light blues. The sense of atmosphere and light that he was famous for presenting in his earlier works had disappeared.
Monet attributed this to the effects of the cataracts. He wrote, “in the end I was forced to recognize that I was spoiling them [the paintings], that I was no longer capable of doing anything good. So I destroyed several of my panels. Now I’m almost blind and I’m having to abandon work altogether. It’s hard but that’s the way it is: a sad end despite my good health!” – letter to Marc Elder, May 8, 1922, Giverny.
John Owens - john@ezidlabels.com - www.ezidlabels.com
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Short History of Spectacles/Eyeglasses/Glasses
The Wikipedia definition is: “Glasses, also known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are devices consisting of lenses mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person’s eyes.” The French called early versions pince-nez which literally means ‘pinch the nose.’ The term spectacles was the name given when arms were added to the lenses so that the ears could provide more comfortable support than a squashed nose. The word spectacle ma...y have been adapted from the Latin words specere (to look at) or spectare (to observe). The word glasses may have evolved from the word spyglass, the name often given to telescopes.
There is some confusion as the where spectacle may have first appeared. Magnifying glasses had been around for a very long time. However the relationship between the shape of a lens and its magnifying qualities was a more recent discovery. The scientist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher Ibn al-Haitham (965-1039) was the first to recognise the correlation between the curved surface of a semi-spherical lens and its powers of magnification when he published his seven volume thesis The Book of Optics.
Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175-1253) the English statesman, scientist, theologian and philosopher became interested in experiments with magnifying lenses, and passed this interest onto his most famous pupil, Roger Bacon (1213 – 1292). Bacon made the first recorded reference to the magnifying properties of lenses in 1262. He was a young lecturer at Oxford University where he carried out experiments with lenses and mirrors. In 1268 he suggested that properly shaped lenses might assist people with low vison.
Glasses appeared first in Florence about 1280 and their use spread rapidly across Europe. Credit for the invention is usually given to a monk called Alessandro di Spina who died in the Italian city of Pisa in 1313. Salvino degli Armati, is also credited as having some involvement. Although I have read several accounts that suggest his involvement was a hoax.
It took another three hundred years before anyone was able to explain why glasses actually worked. In 1604 the work of the German astronomer, mathematician and astrologer Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630) was published. In the course of his astronomical investigations Keppler provided a correct explanation of vision and the functions of the pupil, cornea and retina.
In 1784 Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790) invented bifocals. Benjamin suffered from both myopia (short-sightedness) and presbyopia (reduced ability with age to clearly focus on close objects). In his invention the two lens sections were held by the frame; the middle and lower portion of the lens having different focal lengths.
John Owens - www.ezidlabels.com - john@ezidlabels.com
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