The Basics

• Bates Method in a Nutshell
• Do Glasses Make Your Vision Worse? (an up-to-date summary of relevant research)
• Natural Vision FAQ (140K), maintained by Vic Cinc
• See also the Mailing List Archives

Essays

• Alex Eulenberg's report on the Preventability of Myopia. A review of theories and treatments on ways to prevent and treat nearsightedness. Lots of references, lots of quotes. Lots of surprises.
• Richard McCollim's paper detailing A Unique Case of Self-Induced Myopia and Monocular Diplopia, raising questions about the mechanism of accommodation and the nature of myopia.
• Francine Eisner's Introduction to Vision Training. Optometric vision training, what it's all about.
• Glaucoma -- a deconstruction of the disease by Ray Chamberlin
• Robin Parsons's look at Myopia as a Pernicious Bad Habit.
• Paul Scanlan's General Theory of Myopia (PDF), positing a direct influence of the respiratory system on the visual system.
• The Bershak Method, John Bershak's approach to improving distant vision, emphasizing voluntary control of the extraocular muscles, based on his personal experience.

Books

• William Bates's Classic, Perfect Sight Without Glasses.
• Your Glasses And Your Eyes, by Jacob Raphaelson.
• A Preventive and Remedy for School Myopia, by Jacob Raphaelson.
• Why Eyeglasses Are Harmful for Children And Young People, by Joseph J. Kennebeck, O.D.
• Selections from Otis Brown's How To Avoid Nearsightedness: A Scientific Study of the Eye's Behavior.
• The Eye in its Relation to Health, by Chalmers Prentice, M.D.
• Questions and Answers about the Power Vision System, an exceprt from The Secret of Perfect Vision, by David De Angelis.

Journal Articles

• Plus Lens Therapy for Myopia as practiced by optometrists of decades ago. Their success with this method was published in professional Optometric publications.
• New Optometry -- a series of articles by Milton M. Izdal, published in 1935, explaining various eye conditions as the result of energy habitually sent to the eye muscles, and challenging the "eye is too long / too short" concept of refractive error.

Review of recent studies

• Does the O'Leary Undercorrection study (aka Chung et al 2002) really prove that you should wear your full-strength glasses?
• COMET study. Did they really prove that plus lenses can't protect children from becoming more myopic?
• Spectacle Intervention study. Does wearing glasses make a difference?

Personal Experiences

• "I Can See" -- Performing artist Adam Klein shares his experience with vision improvement.
• How not to cure myopia, by Richard McCollim
  • The Optifuge
  • The Incyclorotator
• Medical student Aparna Nair reduces her myopia by a diopter in less than a year, with timeline, prescription scans, techniques, and tips.
• Personal Histories from the I SEE Mailing List Archives

Nutrition

• NutraSweet (aspartame) -- poison for the eye!
  • Aspartame and the Eye by H.J. Roberts, M.D.
  • Aspartame and Blindness etc. Various Authors, compiled by Betty Martini.
  • Aspartame and Dry Eye (and worse) -- a clinical report by H.J. Roberts
  • More about aspartame -- health matters, science, and politics.
• Bilberry for better vision -- two articles courtesy of Rob Bidelman.

Dissenting Doctors

• How to Eliminate Hyperopia by Dr. Merrill Allen -- if your child has a crossed or wandering eye, take this document to your eye doctor!
• Doctors agree: Glasses make myopia worse!

Figures in the History of Unorthodox Eyecare

• William Horatio Bates, MD
  • Obituary from New York Times
  • Biography from National Cyclopedia of American Biography
  • His book, Perfect Sight Without Glasses
• Emanuel Josephson, MD and his Nutritional Theory of Myopia.
• Joseph Kennebeck, OD
• Chalmers Prentice, MD
• Jacob Raphaelson, OD

Optics, geometrical and physiological

• Extraocular muscles and their effect on the shape of the eye
• Schachar's theory of accomodation (courtesy of eMedicine) -- a new lens-based theory of accommodation that differs from that of Helmholtz.
• Accommodation in the Lensless Eye, by A. Edward Davis, an article published in 1895.
• A Cybernetic Model of Accommodation, by Otis S. Brown et al.

Debate

• How effective is surgery for cross-eye (strabismus, esotropia)? Will we ever get an answer from the ophthalmologists? Featuring UCSD's favorite pediatric ophthalmologist, David Granet.
• Straight answers to Outrageous Questions posed by an avid supporter of mainstream eyecare, also from San Diego.

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