Prevention of Blindness

Of the 150,000 children born on earth each day,* at least 200 who live will be blind. The League of Red Cross Societies figures 2,390,000 blind in the world, 105,000 of them in the U. S. China, with the greatest population, has the most blind. Dr. Harvey James Howard, who spent 14 years in China before he became director of the McMillan Hospital of St. Louis and of the department of ophthalmology in Washington University Medical School, once wrote: "If a procession of the totally blind people in China should pass in review in single file before the President of China at the rate of 2,000 per hour without stopping day or night, the President would go without sleep for one whole month. There are probably not less than one-half million of people in China today who are blind in both eyes; probably five million more who are blind in one eye, and at least 15 million who are nearly blind, many of whom will be totally blind within a few years."

To reduce such numbers and prevent blindness in at least the U. S., the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness met at St. Louis last week. William Howard Taft is honorary president of the Society; William Fellowes Morgan, Manhattan cold storage tycoon, president; Lewis Herbert Carris, managing director. Most distinguished guest was Dr. Ernest Fuchs, 79, gold-spectacled professor-emeritus of ophthalmology at the University of Vienna, "dean" of the profession.

Blindness Defined. Fixing on a definition of blindness was a difficulty. The U. S. definition is "inability to see well enough to read even with the aid of glasses," or for illiterates "inability to distinguish forms and objects with sufficient distinctness." The Society prefers the British legal description: "too blind to be able to read the ordinary school books used by children," and "unable to perform any work for which eyesight is essential." A one-eyed person is not blind technically. Nor is the usual near-sighted person.

Causes of Blindness are chiefly trachoma, venereal disease, babies' sore eyes (only three out of five eye infections at birth are due to gonococci), congenital defects, smallpox, glaucoma, accidents.

Preventive Work. The U. S. society and the Red Cross are trying to reduce the world's incidence of blindness by preventive work--by educating mothers and communities to the use of silver nitrate on every newborn's eyes, by getting children's eye clinics established, by teaching teachers to recognize impaired vision, by trying to eradicate trachoma, by preventing accidents and eye strain in industries.

*Estimate by Harvard Professor Edward Murray East.