Michael writes: > There are several reports indicating that the Bates methods had no practical > value. In the case of Huxley he seems to have suffered from an inflamatory > condition affecting the surface of the cornea. This would seem to be an > unlikely condition to respond to an exercise routine. Recovery might have been > spontaneous or maybe he had other therapy. I've heard that, but Bates anatomical explanation correlated better with things I'd observed than other explanations. I also know there were some very aggrieved optalmologists in the day, somewhat peeved at what Bates was postulating ;) Not discounting what you have said at all, I was taught by books that we focus by changing the shape of the lens in our eye, and that as we age the lens hardens. Now being an inquisitive fellow and growing up working around farms I had access to animal body parts (later the same at university), when I was 15 or so I found on opening various eyeballs that lenses were in fact hard as stones! fresh kills, old kills, young or old animals - these things were like rocks! I asked lecturers why they said lenses were responsible for focussing when they were clearly so hard they could not change shape and was told the muscles around the lens were strong enough to stretch the lens. yeah but - there *were* no muscles anywhere near the lenses of any of the eyeballs I opened. apparently I was a troublemaker.. anyway, it always bothered me until I read of Bates explanation only a few years back that it was the radial muscle around the whole eyeball (rarely if ever drawn in diagrams of 'how the eye works') which squeezes to change the shape of the eye which in turn focuses the vision. Made a lot of sense to me! no one else ever explained the function of that muscle.. His descriptions of the anatomical test of eyesight by severing that muscle and rejoining it also agreed with his thoughts. He concluded that many were tense - trying to see actively rather than passively - and that simply relaxing that muscle could alleviate poor eyesight. I had a friend, a vet with 2 doctorates come around one day asking to borrow Bates book as a friend of hers - another doctor, had an odd experience he'd experienced. He was -5 dioptre dependant, wore contacts, and was midway through playing a particularly important basketball game when he found his eyes were stinging badly. He continued and at the end of the game asked someone to look see if there was something in his eye.. much to his surprise, one lens was gone and the other was screwed up in the corner of his eye.. but he could see clearly! He's since begun trying Bates simple relaxation techniques. Bates wasn't selling anything aside from a book. He was an ophthalmologist who risked offending colleagues and reducing the number of glasses he sold.. obviously it isn't going to work for everyone, but Bates original book (not variants!) is well worth the read - aside from some arcane language (a squint means cockeyed NOT squinting!) it's worth it for anyone interested. a copy of the pdf can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/karlshahjenner/images/eyes.pdf All the vet texts *for ever* have described horses as having 'ramp vision' - that they hold theirs heads down to see clearly, as the point at which they 'see' is on the bottom of the eyeball not in the centre as are our eyes. No one questioned this. Last year or the year before a farrier brought this 'knowledge' down when he(she? - I cant recall) presented physical evidence (dissected eyeballs) and actual evidence (footage of countless horses running wild with their head up). Horse eyeballs were dissected by countless anatomy students, people have worked with horses for - how long? - and yet we *knew* ramp vision to be fact. well it wasn't . It seems we had hauled down the horses heads with bridles to actually blind them and make them dependant on their riders to see and the whole ramp vision myth just kinda sprung up even though all the evidence was in front of us for an eternity. i've encountered much in Bates book which supports things I've observed myself better than other explanations.. I'm always willing to consider new evidence :) http://www.dansdata.com/gz090.htm k
