1893-1894 - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

150 NORTH CAROLINA ROARD .OF HEALTH.
famil}' having- tlie exi)erience. If not iiersonally familiar with the facts
send nie the name and address, that I maj' write him direct.
" Yoiii' I'cind and ju'ompt attention will greatly oblige,
" Yonrs trnly,
"IIICU'D H.
LEWIS,
",SVrirArrv."
THE PREVENTION OF BLINDNESS.
In addition to the adoption of the resolutions in regard to the better
education of our physicians in hygiene ])ublished in our last issue action
was also taken by the conjoint session of the State Board of Health and
the State Medical Society at its second annual meeting looking to the
lessening of blindness, a calamity second only to death itself.
While tlie estimates vary we think it safe to say that ophthalrn'ui vconutorum
is the chief cause of hopeless blindness. Quite a number of years
ago in a paper on this subject of the pui-ulent conjunctivitis of the newborn
we attempted to show in our introductory remarks that blindness
from this cause as well as congenital blindness was a peculiarly sad affliction,
more to be deplored than blindness coming on later in life. We
cannot lay our hands upon it, but we remember the main point in our
argument is this: A person who has ncA'er consciously seen or who has
no recollection of seeing can never have the mental concepts that can
come only through the eye; he can never conceive the idea of color, and
those of form and distance nuist be very inadequate. This being true, it
is easy to understand how seriously handicapped such a person would
be in his mental operations, particularly those involving the exercise of
the imagination. If, however, he has enjoyed even for a season the inestimable
blessing of sight the pages of memory will have been illuminated
with innumerable pictures that can never be entirely effaced; he will be
accurate and complete conceptions of color, form and
in possession of
space, and thereby enabled to ai>prehend in their completeness the ideas
transmitted through the language of others. Therefore, having these
beautiful conceptions, he can in the kaleidoscope of the imagination
evolve an infinite number of i
ictures and enjoy more fully the jileasures
of that fuculty. So if there can be degrees in such a misfortune, so
dreadful at its best, we feel that the class iinder consideration are most
to be pitied. But it requires no argument to excite the sympathy for
these stricken little ones of our readers or to enlist their co-operation
in any movement for saving others from the same affliction. Most of
them have doubtless seen such cases, and no words can equal in eloquence
the mute appeal of those sightless and disfigured orbs. The
practical question with us is, What can we do to prevent in future such
cases of blindness?
Ophthalmia neonatorum itself is generally a preventable
disease, but even' when the disease has become established its serious