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of the myope class. The sight-saving class regime is based on
the theory that the eye-strain involved in reading and other close
work tends to accelerate the progress of the myopia. This
theory is not, however, universally accepted. The other school
of thought on myopia regards it as an inherited condition of the
eyes which progresses to a degree determined more or less by the
hereditary factor, and influenced not so much by the amount of
close work done as by the general health of the myope.
A firm believer in, and clear exponent of, this latter view is
Mr. T. Harrison Butler, Surgeon to the Birmingham and
Midland Eye Hospital and School Oculist, Coventry Education
Authority. He writes in the Annual Report of the School Medical
Officer, Coventry, 1929 (page 145), as follows:—
"I cannot here go into the vexed question of the cause of
myopia. I do not believe that the use of the eyes has anything to
do with it. I constantly find a history of myopia in the forebears,
and believe that the true cause is a hereditary weakness in the
scleral coat of the eye, which is aggravated by malnu[???]tion
and toxic influences of all kinds. I find that not only do
[???]requently obtain actual evidence of hereditary short-sight, but
the final degree of short-sight can often be foretold by a study
of the myopia of the relations. If, for example, the mother has
seven degrees of myopia it is probable that her myopic child will
reach approximately this figure."
He furnishes graphs showing an increase in the incidence of
myopia in elementary and secondary school children in Coventry
following the industrial troubles of 1926, and says:—
"There can be little doubt that the variation of the curves
represents an alteration in general health conditions. The myopic
curve is a nutrition curve. During the boom period after the war
wages were high, and the nutrition of working-class children was
good. The year 1926 began the period of increasing unemployment,
with the inevitable result, diminishing comfort in the home,
insufficient and improper food for many children." (The italics
are Mr. T. Harrison Butler's.)
The same authority, writing on "Ophthalmic School Clinics"
in "Public Health," 1929 (page 251), says:—
"High degrees of astigmatism and myopia, and, in older
children, hypermetropia, result in defective vision. A child who