Book Description

Good vision is essential to just about everything we do but not everyone has naturally good vision.Modern technology and modern optometry can do much to restore normal vision and preventblindness, yet globally 40 million people are blind and another 250 million have severe vision loss.Even in Australia, a wealthy country with a good health system, 70,000 Australians are legally blindand some 300,000 have low vision. It is a global public heath challenge to reduce these numbers.This book takes the reader through the early history of optometry, from the invention of spectaclesin Italy in the late 14th century, through the evolution of systematic sight testing beginning in the17th century and how this got its solid scientifi c foundations in the 18th and 19th centuries.When Australia was fi rst settled by Europeans, spectacles were bought in general stores andselected by trial and error, but by 1830 there were opticians who tested sight. They got betterat doing so and began calling themselves optometrists at the turn of century. They battled thetyranny of distance at a time when scientifi c advances were taking place in Europe and Americaand it took three months to travel to England. Australian optometrists kept good pace with whatwas happening in those countries: they beat the tyranny of distance.They engaged in political battles to win recognition and legislation to regulate their professionand improve its educational standards. There were battles glorious, some won and some lost.They faced hostility from a medical profession that wanted to lay claim to all things to do withhealth, to the exclusion or subordination of others. It took time and effort but the two ophthalmicprofessions, optometry and ophthalmology, found a rapprochement, at times still an uneasy one,but they now work cooperatively, making best use of their respective skills for the benefi t ofpatients. This book tells a fascinating story of the evolution of an important aspect of health carein Australia, and does so in the context of changing technology and a changing society.