"But this is not all. Girls wear long and fluffy bangs, intercepting the
sight, and both boys and girls seldom bathe their faces with clear cold
water. In the matutinal face washing the eyes are usually closed, while a
wet towel is delicately passed over the eyelids. Few persons can bear the
pain of opening their eyes wide in a basin of cold water, yet Mr. A. M.
Spangler told, in his interesting lecture on Nassau, how the native
population would dive to the bottom of the sea and bring up shells,
sponges, etc., that had been pointed out to them by curious visitors
through a sea glass. Not only men divers, but also little boys and girls
could keep their eyes open in the water and search for cents which had
been thrown in for them to pick up. This shows that even salt water is not
injurious to eyes accustomed to it, and that habit makes the eye
unnaturally sensitive."
As to the statement that "people who live much out of doors are usually
very keen-sighted," it is an expression of a popular idea, but, like most
popular ideas, is true only to a limited extent. The fact is that persons
who do not live much out of doors generally use their eyes more for near
work, such as reading, sewing, drawing, etc., and hence are more likely to
develop near-sightedness. Persons living indoors who are not near-sighted
are able to see as well and as far as those who live outdoors. It is true
that the old sailor will recognize a ship in the horizon, or any other
distant object at sea, sooner than a landsman. But it is not because he is
any more "keen-sighted." It is because he knows just what to look for. He
has seen such objects amid similar surroundings a thousand times, and
recognizes them, even though his vision be considerably impaired by
disease. I have often found, on testing the vision of such persons, that
it was not more than one-half the normal, and yet they declared, and, I
believe, conscientiously so, that they could discern a ship at sea as far
as any one. A very large proportion of the North American Indians, who
live much out of doors, have poor sight from inflammatory diseases of
their eyes caused by exposure to smoke in their wigwams, and by contagious
eye diseases, the propagation of which is favored by their unsanitary
methods of living. But, no doubt, many of them can discern distant objects
upon the prairies and in the forests farther than their white brothers
because of their greater familiarity with the appearances of such objects.
It seems to me that the practice of opening the eyes under water is not to
be specially recommended, except in cases of necessity. While many bear it
well, to others it is more or less painful and irritating. Moreover,
nature furnishes a fluid with which to wash the eyeballs, and applies it
herself. It is only necessary to keep the eyelids scrupulously clean, and
especially the edges of the eyelids where the eyelashes grow out. For
bathing the eyelids when uninflamed, nothing is better than pure cold
water. When the eyes become red and inflamed, the best domestic remedy is
salt and water, about a teaspoonful to the pint, and applied warm or cold,
or at whatever temperature seems most agreeable to the eyes in any
particular case.