Through Mr. Huxley's Eyes
The Art of Seeing. By Aldous Huxley. (Chatto and Windus. 7s.)
IN 1939, having suffered from defective vision for most of his life, Mr. Huxley came to the conclusion that this could not be adequately corrected by the use of lenses. He therefore decided to give up wearing spectacles, and adopt the treatment advocated by the late Dr. W. H. Bates, an American, who had published in 192o a book on the cure of imperfect sight by treatment without glasses. Mr. Huxley is confident that this treatment has effected a very considerable improvement in his own vision and comfort, and his present volume gives an account of his experiences, details of some of the mental and physical exercises prescribed by Dr. Bates and his followers, and an analysis of the factors comprised in the art of seeing.
Dr. Bates' theory and methods are being publicised and taught by various exponents in several countries, and Mr. Huxley admits that some of these may be less skilled or less faithful than others to the parental gospel. Dr. Bates' theory and methods are also well known to most experienced ophthalmic surgeons, not only in this country ; and it is probably true to say that neither the theory nor the methods have been accepted as valid by the great majority of them. Mr. Huxley is aware of this, but considers that it is largely due to professional bigotry ; that the majority of ophthal- mologists have not paid sufficient attention to the mental aspect of vision, have been too ready to prescribe crutches, in the shape of glasses, and not ready enough to assist by re-education the re- cuperative powers naturally inherent in the eye ; and that a " vested interest," on the part of the manufacturers of optical lenses, may have contributed to the opposition encountered by Dr. Bates and his disciples.
In these suppositions he has perhaps been a little less than fair. Most ophthalmic surgeons are well aware of the mental and psychical factors involved in vision, and the part that these may play in its disorders ; and references to them will be found in most text-books on the subject Nor do most experienced ophthalmic surgeons automatically prescribe glasses to patients in whom there seems a prospect of natural adaptation by other means. In spite, too, of the lucidity and persuasiveness with which, as would be expected, Mr. Huxley writes, he makes one or two rather sweeping generalisations. It may, of course, be quite true, as he argues, that a method which " works," as he claims on behalf of Dr. Bates, may be incorrectly explained, in a physiological sense, by its expositor. Medicine, in its long history, has many instances of this. But does Dr. Bates' method work to quite the extent that Mr. Huxley implies?
Only a very accurate and large-scale follow-up, with proper con- trols, could demonstrate this • and many cases have been recorded in which followers of Dr. Bates' method have been obliged, after varying periods, to revert to their glasses. Again, there may be others wearing glasses—not necessarily prescribed by experienc ophthalmologists--who should long ago have discarded them or per haps not worn them at all. The mere desistence, in these may confer a benefit, apart from the accompanying ritual. there are always those in whom the psychical factor is predomin and in whom any form of sufficiently convincing suggestion ma have dramatic results. It is with these reservations that Ali Huxley's very sincere and scholarly brief should be read; and it a any rate emphasises the importance, in every problem of defectir vision, of considering the person as well as the eye.
H. H. BASHFORD.
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