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Whereas I was Blind
BOOK NOTICES hallucinations and only succeeded in see ing the worst of the so-called futuristic paintings. . . . I judge that my preoccupa tion not to move my head or eyes was the cause of all the subjective phenomena.
191
BOOK NOTICES W H E R E A S I WAS BLIND. By Capt. Sir Ian Frazier. Clothbound, 168 pages. London, Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd. Price 8/6.
This is a very readable story of a man V. J. found his most unpleasant experi ence in convalescence to be the necessity blinded in the first World War as a boy for maintaining immobility in bed, spend of 18, who would never let himself be ing five days and nights in a single posi discouraged but went forward to make tion being sometimes impossible. "I was of himself an outstanding figure in Eng only successful in remaining three days land. He describes his sensations and reac immobile in the bed and after that I passed the day in the chair and lay down tions from the onset of his blindness only at night, making the change between through his varied career. He became these two positions very slowly without assistant to Sir Arthur Pierson, who was displacing the head from its ideal posi director of St. Dunstan's in its early tion." Sleep was always taken in right years, and, upon the death of Sir Arthur, in 1922, succeeded him as director of that lateral decubitus. After eighteen days V. J. resumed his institute. The author had multifarious in ophthalmologic practice, with normal vi terests: From the directorship of St. sion. He confesses that some of the rules Dunstan's he was elected to Parliament, usually imposed upon patients by himself where he served several terms, always and other oculists were disregarded, "not acting in the interests of the blinded. He from indiscipline," but because he found later had a connection with the British them exaggerated. Whereas resting the Broadcasting Company. eye and keeping the head immobile in the The book is valuable from many points proper position are indispensable, "im of view, perhaps foremost of which is the mobility of the bed does not help the reaction of the individual to blindness. It patient at all if the operation did not close is a good directive for those who have to or block the retinal tear. . . . If the opera do with the rehabilitation of the blind. tion did not go well, the retina which at This subject is particularly pertinent in the first examination appeared perfectly these days when the number of our warattached begins to become detached after blinded is steadily increasing. The book the first six or eight days. Hence the abso also gives an interesting account of the lute necessity for determining the cause development of St. Dunstan's, and points of the detachment, whether traumatic, out the important sphere of influence myopic, syphilitic, tuberculous, and so on." that this organization has, its greatest After seven months V. J.'s operated value being in its Aftercare Department. eye retained normal vision with correc The volume will be of value to all oph tion, a visual field merely contracted a thalmologists because they have frequent little in the upper outer quadrant by rea ly to deal with the blind individual, and son of the cauterizations, a few organized their contacts with the patient in the early exudates in the vitreous, and no phos- stages of his blindness will be important phenes or other subjective or objective in coloring his entire future. symptoms pointing to recurrence. W. H. Crisp. Lawrence T. Post.
191
BOOK NOTICES W H E R E A S I WAS BLIND. By Capt. Sir Ian Frazier. Clothbound, 168 pages. London, Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd. Price 8/6.
This is a very readable story of a man V. J. found his most unpleasant experi ence in convalescence to be the necessity blinded in the first World War as a boy for maintaining immobility in bed, spend of 18, who would never let himself be ing five days and nights in a single posi discouraged but went forward to make tion being sometimes impossible. "I was of himself an outstanding figure in Eng only successful in remaining three days land. He describes his sensations and reac immobile in the bed and after that I passed the day in the chair and lay down tions from the onset of his blindness only at night, making the change between through his varied career. He became these two positions very slowly without assistant to Sir Arthur Pierson, who was displacing the head from its ideal posi director of St. Dunstan's in its early tion." Sleep was always taken in right years, and, upon the death of Sir Arthur, in 1922, succeeded him as director of that lateral decubitus. After eighteen days V. J. resumed his institute. The author had multifarious in ophthalmologic practice, with normal vi terests: From the directorship of St. sion. He confesses that some of the rules Dunstan's he was elected to Parliament, usually imposed upon patients by himself where he served several terms, always and other oculists were disregarded, "not acting in the interests of the blinded. He from indiscipline," but because he found later had a connection with the British them exaggerated. Whereas resting the Broadcasting Company. eye and keeping the head immobile in the The book is valuable from many points proper position are indispensable, "im of view, perhaps foremost of which is the mobility of the bed does not help the reaction of the individual to blindness. It patient at all if the operation did not close is a good directive for those who have to or block the retinal tear. . . . If the opera do with the rehabilitation of the blind. tion did not go well, the retina which at This subject is particularly pertinent in the first examination appeared perfectly these days when the number of our warattached begins to become detached after blinded is steadily increasing. The book the first six or eight days. Hence the abso also gives an interesting account of the lute necessity for determining the cause development of St. Dunstan's, and points of the detachment, whether traumatic, out the important sphere of influence myopic, syphilitic, tuberculous, and so on." that this organization has, its greatest After seven months V. J.'s operated value being in its Aftercare Department. eye retained normal vision with correc The volume will be of value to all oph tion, a visual field merely contracted a thalmologists because they have frequent little in the upper outer quadrant by rea ly to deal with the blind individual, and son of the cauterizations, a few organized their contacts with the patient in the early exudates in the vitreous, and no phos- stages of his blindness will be important phenes or other subjective or objective in coloring his entire future. symptoms pointing to recurrence. W. H. Crisp. Lawrence T. Post.