Bad Eyesight Before Glasses: What Did People Do?
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- Опубліковано 20 чер 2018
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History Dose tackles the question: What did people with poor eyesight do before glasses were invented? Glasses are a necessity for so many people today, so what did people do before the they were invented in the late thirteenth century? We look at how farsighted people- from Renaissance scholars and Vikings, to Ancient Romans and Egyptians- may have used magnifiers to combat farsightedness (presbyopia).
We also look at how nearsightedness (myopia) appears to be a modern epidemic driven by lifestyle changes. However, if you were one of the few that were nearsighted, it probably would not have impacted your lifestyle as much as it would today.
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Sources:
Cassidy, J J, editor. “Medical Gleanings from Roman Egypt.” Canadian Journal of Medicine and
Surgery, vol. 7, 1900, p. 43.
Dolgin, Elie. “The Myopia Boom.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 18 Mar. 2015,
www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120.
Gellius, Aulus. “Book IV, Chapter II.” Attic Nights,
penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Gellius/4*.html.
Ilardi, Vincent. Renaissance Vision from Spectacles to Telescopes. American Philosophical
Society, 2007. [Chapters 1 & 3 were particularly relevant for this video]
Jacewicz, Natalie. “What Did Nearsighted Humans Do Before Glasses?” NPR, 7 July 2016,
www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/07/484835077/what-did-nearsighted-humans-do-before-glasses.
Pliny the Younger. “Smaragdus.” Natural History, p. 6409,
perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=PerseusLatinTexts&getid=1&query=Plin. Nat. 37.16. Book 37, Chapter 16.
Whitehouse, David. “Did the Vikings Make a Telescope?” BBC News, BBC, 5 Apr. 2000,
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/702478.stm.
Whoa our first video and we've already surpassed 800 views in less than a day! Thanks everyone--glad to know you like the content. We have much more coming!
The editing, transitions, pacing, background music, and narration all had me immediately thinking that @KaptainKristian had spawned a new video essay channel for history education. Very well done. 👍
Came here from the Tsushima video. Great work guys!
@@SirFaceFone what Tsushima video?
You touched on a subject that intelligent people can relate to. After all, there's a reason that wearing glasses is associated with intelligence. "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses" was because men didn't want girlfriends smarter than they were. My mom always hid her glasses (pre-contact lens era).
221k in March 16 of 2022
I knew staring directly at the sun when I was 5 was a good idea
U wearing glasses now, aint ya?
@Stephanie Masek is it brian regal or whatever
I did the same thing at 8 and yes I'm the only one in my family with glasses.
I kept doing it for years straight. Hm...
Same when I was in pre school I liked to look directly at the sun. Over time it stopped hurting, but I could see the green & purple dots in my eye after closing my eyes it was something cool I liked to do back then. I still like to look at the sun, but from a safe area now.
As someone with bad eyesight this was very eye opening.
get tf out of here
I'ma keep an eye on you guys
Chortle.
Ba dum crashh
I see what you did there.
One likely reason there's more people diagnosed with nearsightedness is because now it *matters* more. As a sheep herder, my extreme nearsightedness wouldn't matter as I could still see sheep far away or wolves closing in, because they're different colors from the landscape. I can cook with very little vision, only needing to see vague shapes and colors. With the aid of a walking stick I could navigate stairs and uneven roads.
But now that I need to drive and do office work, corrective lenses are required. Plus they're just really freaking useful!
As someone who is near sighted, I definitely would not have been able to be a sheep herder. I definitely would not be able to see that wolf coming, or even cook, as i can hardly recognise someone standing in front of me, and i struggle to find my glasses in the morning if i don’t remember where i put them 😂
While it is probably true that more people are diagnosed with nearsightedness today, he said the rates in the US and Europe have doubled from 60 years ago. That's 1960. I'm pretty sure we weren't all sheep herders in the 60s. 😂
While that's possible, it's still true that more sun exposure during development correlates with less nearsightedness, so it also makes sense why it's more common nowadays
Wait... Isn't that farsightedness?
@G E T R E K T I'd love to see this "proven science" lol, that'd be a first
I was bounced around from foster care to foster care teachers called me stupid or ignorant because I was getting straight fs and no body payed enough attention I was 15 when they realized I wasn't dissabled I was legally blind and now I'm still dissabled the critical years of learning were lost because of negligence
I’m so sorry that happened to you! Don’t give up striving for a bright future! 💖
My son, eat honey, for it is good; Yes, the honey from the comb is sweet to your taste; Know that wisdom is the same for your soul; If you find it, then there will be a future, And your hope will not be cut off.
Proverbs 24:13-14
For consider your calling, brothers and sisters, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the insignificant things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no human may boast before God. But it is due to Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written: “ Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
I’ve seen people that the world considers hopeless, dangerous, or slow be make great because of their faith in Jesus. 💖
For Moses writes of the righteousness that is based on the Law, that the person who performs them will live by them. But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: “ Do not say in your heart, ‘ Who will go up into heaven ?’ (that is, to bring Christ down), or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” But what does it say? “ The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart ”-that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “ Whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “ Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 10:5-13 - www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Romans%2010:5-13&version=NASB
i actually had no idea i had myopia until i tried on my friend's glasses as a joke. i literally just thought people couldn't see that far and was super shocked
I had similar experience. When I was about 7 I realized things in the distance can look sharper after I looked through a small hole in my baseball cap.
Same
My mother, who was born in 1941, got her first glasses at the insistence of her school when she was about nine years old. She put them on and exclaimed, “Mother, the trees are standing up!” Her mother, who was actually her stepmother and not the greatest parent, felt terribly guilty. Mom was legally blind (a somewhat misleading term) beginning in her 40’s - which just meant stronger glasses and no limits to driving, computer use, reading, etc. Science is a great thing.
@G E T R E K T I think that's an urban myth. The older optometrist that examined me once told me this too, but from what I gather the evidence isn't conclusive. It's just what she was told 40 years ago when she started working.
@G E T R E K T Source please.
As I am someone with awful eyesight I have always wondered about this. Thx for the great video.
When you see a young person squinting while wearing glasses to read a text on their cell phones, thank god they have surgery for bad eyes now.
The cornea has malfunctions (bigger spots etc.) You need a lasik Surgery
@@reducecotwo tell me your a boomer without telling me your a boomer
Right! I saw the title and had to click!
Same, I can't live without my glasses. Been wearing them since I was 20.
As a person with horrible, borderline debilitating without glasses eyesight, I’m glad to have been born in a time with widespread optical health care 😭
The problem for me is I’m so extremely nearsighted that what’s considered “distant” for me is about 4” from my face. I’d definitely find farming and other common daily activities very hard without glasses. I don’t need reading glasses but I need glasses to read.
I have this lovely thing to get people to understand how bad my eyesight is: I take off my glasses, i raise my hand in front of my face, and I bring it closer until it is no longer blurry; at the moment, 3-4 fingers away from my eyeballs, everything starts blurring, and I make sure to remind the other person that the more distant the thing is, the worse the blur to the point I won't know something is there. I actually wrote a scene for a character of mine where someone witnesses him doing this alone before calling an eye doctor, and they thought it was a joke - boy I wish needing glasses whose lenses alone are R$600-700 was a joke
My eyes are roughly this bad as well.
I'm fairly certain that people with vision this limited before glasses would have just been labeled 'blind', not 'short of sight' though.
@@PoignantPirate probably, especially because today, people with vision this limited, are considered legally blind
@@fmazerolol Not quite. Someone who is legally blind won't have any clarity of sight, and glasses won't provide much in vision correction, (nor would anything else). A severely nearsighted person will still have some clarity of sight without correction, just very limited. Those of us on this post still have normal vision with glasses while having some clear sight and are referring to others who have a similar experience. Being legally blind is more then just having extremely poor vision.
@@Stargazer5454 well as far as I know, the criteria is either 20/200 or worse vision on your best seeing eye, or 20 or less degrees field of vision. Pretty sure if you can only see things 4 inches from your face, your eyesight is worse than 20/200
You know, it's interesting to think about the implications of having bad eyesight today. In the technical sense of the term, the fact that I'm nearsighted does mean that I suffer from a disability. It just doesn't feel like it at all because the means to correct my eyesight are very easily accessible. Glasses and contact lenses are completely ordinary to most people, they are accepted and finding out someone needs corrective Eyewear doesn't change your perception of them the same way more severe physical or mental disability does. Bad eyesight and the means to correct for it have become, in a word, normalized.
Yep. It becomes weird to think that it is technically a disability
So 60 percent of the word have disabilities
You have to consider what the term “disability” means, disability is the quality of a person’s relationship to society, not the quality of a person. If everyone except you developed the ability to fly, you wouldn’t be disabled, you can still walk places and what you can as a member of society wouldn’t be any different from someone who could fly but imagine if a building was built where the only way you could enter was flying through a shaft, then you would be “disabled.”
ua-cam.com/video/hWZx4Y7Cpq8/v-deo.html
@@Anglesso yeah but if I can’t see then I wouldn’t be able to drive or perform work clearly. Wouldn’t be able to leave home without an aide due to blindness. So being in an era where glasses is accessible is lit
@@shantasiahaynes4490 well yes but that’s not my point, my point is that because of the accessibility of glasses, bad vision is not a disability for the most part
I have an idea about the rise of nearsightedness: more precise diagnosis. A slightly nearsighted person would likely not even notice their nearsightedness before lifestyles that included reading small print or traffic signs, but qualifies for prescription lenses in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Probably some of it is, but the studies of needing sun time to complete the formation of the eye are really sound, so they are probably the biggest cause.
No for real- as a kid the first time I noticed I had eye vision problems was with the aisle signs in grocery stores and sometimes when my teachers would write really small on the board. It was subtle enough my parents brushed it off but I ended up getting glasses a year later.
that's likely the actual reason, same as the other "there are more x diagnosis nowadays!!" in general. And the reason, as you said, is simply "more people are getting diagnosed and the diagnosis are getting better". For example there are more newborn children diagnosed with heart problems nowadays (or actually in the last 20 or so years) and that's because...that kind of diagnoses simply weren't common procedure before and the moment they became common procedure the cases spiked.
Granted, it being the "actual" reason doesn't mean there aren't additional reasons but still
@@joaopedrocruz6432 yeah I recently saw a video about it from minute earth I think
That’s a valid point
I think there's also a large genetic factor playing in to the rise in nearsightedness - I am VERY nearsighted, I can barely see six inches without glasses/contacts, and both my mother and her brother are the same way. Nearsightedness like this before glasses would have likely made me nearly useless aside from close, fine detail work, and therefore I'd probably be less appealing as a mate, and then not pass on my genetics, you get the idea.
it is also caused by not playing outside enough as children. the sun lets your eyes know when to stop growing. if you stay indoors too much, they get a bit longer, causing myopia
@@pinkipromise how much of a factor is that? I played outside a lot as a kid and my eyesight was only slightly better back then
I actually asked my Optometrist about this once. I'm legally blind myopic, but my husband is farsighted. I had joked that our son stood NO chance, and he replied that eyesight wasn't a product of genetic heredity. I have no proof either way, but we chatted about it and I guess I will believe the fancy dr. guy lol
@@steviekc9057 I am not an expert in this field by any means, but when I looked this up online I found that research does indicate genetic influence on certain eye conditions, including myopia and hyperopia, but genetics are not the only factor. It's not a straightforward dominat/recessive gene either; there are many different genes that affect the eye's development in different ways, meaning the "bad eyesight" genes may maifest differently depending on the person.
Of course, genetics are not the only factor in poor eyesight, nearsighted or farsighted, and likey not even the biggest factor. However, it still does play a role in eyesight development and degradation.
@@pinkipromise I grew up in the country and was always playing outside, riding my bike, swimming, etc - long before people had cell phones or internet and my vision was -9.75 so the sun never helped me :)
Hey, nearsighted here. Ended up driving box truck professionally a few years ago. Within a year my eyesight improved (in my late 20s) from constantly focusing on distant objects, signs, etc. My prescription actually was reduced after my last optical appointment. I absolutely believe spending time (30+ hours a week) in daylight, looking at distant stuff, is good for you vision and can even help people as adults to some degree.
Yess!!! It’s called active focus. With this and other techniques I reduced my glasses/contacts fron -3,75 to -3,25 and I know I could do more I’ve just been slacking off. You can definitely reduce your prescription with just looking at the right things in the right way
@@martia9176 holy shit I never knew that was possible
There are even vision therapy techniques that can be done, but not a lot of practitioners.
Woah?? I had no clue
@@martia9176 how should i look at things? Whats the technique? How should i focus? I believe that straining eyesight and squinting might be bad but idk
I love how the question posed by this video is “what did people do about bad eyesight?” And the answer is “basically nothing”
The real answer is that nobody could read and weren’t stuck in front of computer monitors.
I guess technically unless you get lasik we still do basically nothing about the poor eyesight. Wearing glasses or contacts is no different than using one of those lenses back in the day, except they are easier to use.
Yeah it was a pointless video. Disliked
We just dealt with it I guess.
People never saw it as a real problem until an effective solution became easily available.
Capitalism in a nutshell?
I was told I was so terribly nearsighted due to reading an extrordinary amount as a very small child and youngster. I was recently told that was found untrue.
I'm just happy that when they removed my cataracts, they fixed my eyes. First time since fourth grade I can see well with no glasses
That's amazing
@Robin only recently are people finding this truth. The blue LED light penetrates and injures the eyesight. This includes phones, laptops, TV's, Notepads, new streetlights, new headlights, and interior lighting at schools and offices.
I would like to know if, after your surgery, the cataracts returned...and more aggressively.
@@Veronica.John10-10 he literally just said he can see better than ever. If his cataracts returned more aggressively then he wouldn’t have said he could see better would he moron
@@Veronica.John10-10 that’s actually been found not true
I grew up on a farm and spent most of my days playing outside, but needed glasses for nearsightedness by the time I was 12. My mother is also extremely nearsighted. I've heard the sunlight hypothesis bandied about a lot recently and I've no idea how rigorous their methodology for exploring the idea has been, but I think it definitely cannot be the full explanation.
This. I was skeptical as well when the video brought that theory in.
I also come from a long line of people with high order myopia. We've always existed, but the question is why there are suddenly now so many more people with, like, 20/60 or 20/100 vision. Their vision is nowhere near as bad as yours or mine, but they still need glasses to read a blackboard or safely drive a car. The theory about sunlight exposure affecting eye development in childhood is being very intensely studied right now, because it's the most promising explanation at the moment. You and I, we probably have a genetic explanation, but there must be something environmental to explain the abrupt rise in myopia in the rest of the population.
I practically lived outside as a child, and yet I needed glasses by age 7.
@@calliarcale That's reasonable. ergo - normal vision folks can have their vision ruined too if they don't go get some UVs now and then kind of deal.
I'm colorblind with a nasty astigmatism, and have always been grateful for being born in this age lol. Glasses and contacts are the only reason I dread the zombie apocalypse 😂
My dad was legally blind at birth, and not given an eye exam until he was in 2nd grade. They just assumed he had intellectual disabilities. I suspect part of the reason more people are diagnosed with nearsightedness is because of better screening. There may be other factors, but access to care is probably a huge one.
This just happened to a family friend's 4 year old, but with hearing. His mom always knew something was up but it wasn't until he started preschool he was given a full examination, which is fucking weird considering this country has a pretty damn decent health care usually, it was just easier to say he was dumb.
They caught me in school squinting at the black board. I didn't even notice myself, and probably would have gone unnoticed if I hadn't attended school. One could speculate that my vision might not have deteriorated to my current level if I hadn't worn glasses.. but I think that has been debunked. There were just no reasons to be able see tiny squiggles 10m away in most of history.
@@98Zai that is exactly how I got glasses in 2nd grade. I couldn’t see the white board at all and the teacher kept getting irritated having to sit me right up against it. Finally, she said something to my mom. Took me to the eye doctor and they found that I, of course, have very poor eyesight. They kept questioning why I never said anything but how can you when that’s everything you know? You just assume that’s how everyone perceives the world.
A similar thing happened to Buckminster Fuller. I remember a TV documentary where he explained that having to go by touch for the first few years of his life probably led to his intuitions about shapes, where you could feel that a triangle was an inherently rigid shape, whereas a rectangle (like the conventional shape of a wall of a room) was not.
The “geodesic dome” that he invented is made entirely out of triangles.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 Cool anecdote!!
I've been really nearsighted since childhood, but I always broke my glasses, so often had to make do without. I would make a fist and look through the smallest crack in it and I could focus on a small area. You lose most of your range of vision, but in an emergency, it works.
That and pulling the corners of my eyes like kids did in the olden days to look Chinese. Our whole family were squinters and eye pullers, but I preferred to just wear glasses or contacts.
@@paulaharrisbaca4851 I forget about that! I think once it dawned on me what a freak I looked like, I blocked it out of my memory. I definitely grew out of that phase, I appreciate my glasses daily.
@@paulaharrisbaca4851 I’m nearsighted as well and I tried your eye pulling method and it just made it more blurry.
@@noahfischer6081 it only focuses a small area. I’m the same as you and it works
I've worn glasses for almost 8 years and I've literally never known this trick until now. WOW. Thank you so fucking much, you didn't have to spout this knowledge today but I'm so glad you did!!
A few years ago one of my friends brought up the question, what if those who are “blind” in the Bible were actually just near or farsighted and I’ve been wondering that ever since and how those people lived their lives. Eyesight is a very precious thing and I would be devastated if I had to live without my glasses as I know my eyesight is terrible without them.
I spent every other moment I had available outside as a kid and achieved almost 20/100 vision by the time I was in second grade. To give an idea of how bad that is, here are some examples. (with my glasses off) People ask me how many fingers theyre holding up, I tell them I didnt know they had a hand, they ask what model that car over there is, I say I didnt even know there was a parking lot. My eye doctor told me that if someone with normal 20/20 vision wanted to experience my vision, they could go to the pharmacy and get four sets of reading glasses of 2X magnification and stack them all together (which is very hard to do without scratching merchandise) and look through that. That's what I see without my glasses.
Some of us are doomed by genetics, no matter how much sunlight we get. ;-) My uncorrected vision cannot be expressed on that scale. If they ask me to read the largest letter I can read on the Snellen chart, I tell them I think there are probably some letters there somewhere. I seriously cannot even see the letters at all, not even a bit of gray, unless I squint very hard. (And even then only the largest letters are just a smudge.) I spent a ton of time outside as a kid in the 70s.
I spent my whole childhood outside playing in the mud and riding my bike...my vision is absolute garbage. My sister spent her time inside playing with toys and watching TV, and her vision is still 20/20.
I’m sure some of its still genetics
@@techsyndicate2610 yeah, definitely
I think they where reffering to the 0-4 year old or something range
That's called anecdotal evidence. Repeat your experiment 1000 times and get back to us.
@@charleswettish8701 I know that...I'm not stupid. I'm just talking about my particular sad and ironic case.
As physician, I feel happy when a video explains the most accepted theory today (nearsight because of low solar exposition) and not just say something like “cellphones are destroying the youth” as some other channels and television usually do. Great video, I’ll surely be watching everything 😄
Could you please explain how can low solar exposition prevent eyeball deformity, which is the cause of myopia (at least in my case)?
I heard that giving the developing eye a good balance of having to focus on far away, as well as near objects is recommended. Also that until the age of 25/30, your eye develops.
As a physician, didn't you cringe a little at hyperopia of people of all ages being called presbyopia in this video?
@@chronicallyalive From what I know, which isn't a lot, sunlight is used by your body to gauge how well your eye is actually developed, so when you receive less sunlight it isn't able to properly stop your eye development at the right time (I believe it's the roundness of the eye, someone with normal vision would have a sphere eye, but those with some sort of impairment may have a "squashed" or "stretched" eye.)
Hi Carlos, do you mean "exposure"? Exposition refers to "discussing a topic".
This is something I always wondered. I have a strong farsightedness and astigmatism, and when I was put in school I spent the first few months not showing interest in anything until I got my first pair of glasses. I couldn't make out a drawing in a piece of paper, I couldn't even make out people's faces. If I was born before glasses, what kind of life would I have? A very slow one I imagine, working the field a few hours a day, chatting by a campfire and asking "who's there?" a lot.
It's strange how over fairly recent years, humans have become much taller and improved their lifespan. During the same timeframe, our teeth, jaws, and eyesight have all downgraded.
@@Automedon2 As someone with prediabetes, I can tell you that too many carbs make my eyes worse.
@@Automedon2 type 1 diabetes is a thing. Asinine to say it's a choice.
When you're near sighted you can increase your distance vision by making a peep hole with your fingers and looking through. The reason is you're eliminating most of the light that isn't already coming straight at you. So you could make a leather blindfold with tiny holes to see through and gain some distance vision back at the cost of peripheral vision.
The Inuit used wore whale bone goggles with two small eye suits so they wouldn't go snowblind.
Good point. I actually found this out by mistake (looking through a hole in a fabric) when I was a kid. Until then I didn't even realize I needed glasses.
You what the fuck, you are right.
Or just squeeze your eyes together. OR use your fingers to stretch the outer corners of your eyes out (like children would do to look "Chinese") it does the same trick. I hate wearing my glasses with the mask and this trick helps me when I need to read something quick. I probably look like this all the time 😑🤨😑 but idc lol
Holy crap lol you're right. I'm super near sighted and it worked. Neat trick
Presbyopia is not farsightedness. That's hyperopia. Presbyopia is diminished near vision that comes with age due to the ocular lens becoming less flexible to accommodate changes in focus, which the eye does for near vision. Kicks in around 40yo
As a medical professional, I came to make this comment. This mistake brings into question also the soundness of the rest of the information in the video.
It translates to "old man eyes."
@@AliKimmel yes-- that's why it's ridiculous when mis-applied to farsighted people of all ages.
that did seem off etymologically speaking
And this video has 1/4th million views, lmao.
I went my whole life until 35 having severe astigmatism in both eyes that were equally rooted, i had severe double vision until 35 years old. I just thought that everything was a bit fuzzy for everyone and struggled with terrible headaches weekly. Getting my eyes sorted has changed my life, my attention span has increased 50% and i can play golf because i can follow the ball clearly and thats just the start of it. It has left me with a deeper psychological existential issue, What have i missed? how could my life be different had i not suffered for 35 years. But i am super glad that i can see now.
It could be the kind of astigmatism you have. My doctor said that the type of astigmatism I have tends to get better after age 25. I don't see much difference in my vision after 35, so I'm probably going to have Lasik anyway. Consider yourself lucky.
Glad you sorted that out and can see now! What a blessing!
I was extremely near sighted as a child and I can tell you that it wasn't because of lack of sunlight. I was outdoors all the time. All that southern California sunshine didn't help me a bit. Laser treatment finally came along and that worked quite nicely for a good while. Now I'm old and have css, chs, crs, and cds. lol
To hear near-sightedness was basically just a matter of "I must be bad at sailing" is kind of oddly casual. Yet at the same time, somewhat relatable given there's many of us out there that simply ride by what we can. I recall by high school, I exclusively sat close to the front and was just fine with that. However it was awkward to go to sandwich shops, and realize I couldn't pick off the menu unless there was a paper pamphlet version. Eventually I buckled down and went to get my eyes checked funnily enough because my sister jokingly put hers over my eyes during a videogame, and the graphical quality intensified to a heavy degree that I was realized my bare eyes lost full details of a virtual floor on the television right in front of me. ... still, if all one did was mostly around gardening and close person interactions of older days, I suppose it wouldn't be so bad to just suck it up and keep at it.
Yeah, we had such a story in our class too. Back in 10th grade, one day we met one of our classmates rocking glasses suddenly. When we asked what caused the change, they just non-chalantly "Oh just something I got prescribed" but the strength of glasses was way beyond something that could have developed in short amount of time. When asked on it, they said, "Oh yeah, I never could see the blackboard from rear desks back from elementary times" (which funnily enough, was where they sat most of times). Considering you don't need perfect vision to enjoy most things and that most tasks can be done without it (like say, doing homework or using mobile phone), no wonder folk wouldn't be that attentive to need to fix it
The first time putting on my prescribed glasses as a teenager was a miracle. I recall just looking at the trees and seing the leaves in such detail. Such an experience lol
I got my first glasses when I was six, but I also had no idea I wasn't seeing as well as other people. It all looked normal to me, because I had no basis for comparison. I remember I got all excited because I saw six egrets in the pond near our house! My dad looked at me strangely, because he only saw three -- the others were just trash bags that had blown in on the wind. They looked exactly the same to me. As far as I knew, egrets were white blobs.
Been wondering about this, thank you!
Thank you, that was very informative.
Love the chillhop background and the editing.
The narrator's voice is clear and not obnoxious, plus the content is really clearly presented.
Keep it up!
Just got a recommendation for one of his videos today and thought the exact same thing! Great content and quality production! New sub! 💯
What is the name of the chill hop Lofi music?
Dreams - Joakim Karud
I remember my first time wearing glasses 🤓. It was amazing. I can't imagine how amazed people were almost a thousand years ago
Me too, I spent an hour just lifting and lowering them to see the leaves on trees
@@BouncingTribbles haha same!
First time wearing glasses in 2nd grade and it was an EPIPHANY!!! I was ecstatic. It was like being born again literally, not religiously (I wonder if that could match up to that....). I wonder if being able to hear clearly and distinctly is also equally inspirational as well....
Haha, I was 16 when I first got mine. It freaked me out and I didn't like it. I didn't wear them. Just, asked to sit closer in class throughout the rest of high school and college. I finally started wearing them at 26 when I finally needed to get a license and drive.
@@BouncingTribbles I got mine in the winter and was stunned to see all the texture and bumps of the snow. lol! But I'm dubious about the 'exposure to the sun' bit - I was outside almost all the time as a kid, all year round, but still am near-sighted. First pair of glasses -.75 to current -5.5. But, I will say that every single one of us kids have glasses, my mom has glasses, my grandparents had glasses, etc etc. I'd put my money on genetics vs. sun exposure any day.
i’ve always wondered this. thanks for the cool video!
Fascinating insights! Subscribed.
As a particularly short-sighted person, I can attest that it is really useful in situations where "normies" need magnification. I do needlework, and I'm the only person in my group who does not need a maginifier to work on 32-ct (32 threads to an inch, both ways) linen. I can also read extremely small print, such as serial numbers on small objects, just by taking my glasses off.
Absolutely, great at seeing super minute details that other people don't catch, not so great at reading the exit signs on the freeway lmao
Wait, I have really bad nearsightness, does that mean that I have good close up vision? Can the same distortion of eye shape that limits far sight also extend near sight?
@@himesilva Well that's how it works for me.
@Alexandre Limberger Cool!
That "advantage" drops off a cliff as your nearsightedness gets worse. I have to hold things so close to focus on them without glasses my eyes cross.
Actually there was a simple commonly available tool that helped the nearsighted.
A regular sewing needle.
By looking through the eye of a needle the near sighted can use it as a lense to focus on distant objects.
So they had a way to spot lost livestock and make out the identity of someone at a distance.
Needles and fishooks have been found that suggest they were made for someone who mainly used them as lense (the holes are perfectly round and slightly larger than normal.)
Interesting. I make a fist and look through the small circle to see my alarm clock in the morning.
@@Britenus I do the same thing, but with my butt cheeks.
JUST TRIED!! IT WORKS! HAD NO IDEA @@Britenus
Very interesting video. Thank you.
I’m always so amazed at the invention of glasses and eye treatments and surgeries, so amazing
Consider that maybe we have seen a high rise in myopia simply because there are many more ophthalmologists, and many more people going to see them. Medical awareness had also gone up drastically in our societies in the past decades, and I'm sure that this accounts for some, if not most, of the seeming rise in myopia.
Have a great day.
I'm assuming you're heard that reasoning with other health conditions and so you think it applies here, but it doesn't. You don't need a doctor to find out you can't see.
@@rainsong77 Most people have some kind of eye related defect, and these can occur in varying deficiency, some very small. It is physically impossible to know how (physically) someone else sees the world. So how are you supposed to know if your eyesight is deficient if you don't see a doctor?
People usually only realise when they are next to someone and the person next to them can see something clearly but they can't. You can go a pretty long time in life before something like this happens.
@@rainsong77 But you might need a doctor to become part of the recorded statistics about the number of people who don't see.
YOU knowing you don't see doesn't mean the rest of the world knows.
@@rainsong77 I respectfully disagree, because going to eye doctors, glasses stores...etc make up a database that gives us statistics on myopia, that we then use to extrapolate to the general population.
Indeed you don't need a doctor to tell you that you can't see properly, but if no one is counting the number of people who can't see well, how can you know if that number has risen?
@@rainsong77 You do need to know that you see worse than others, which isn't obvious at all.
Great video, keep it up and you definitely find success guys.
Fascinating video. Earned you a new subscriber
This question randomly came into my mind and had to look it up. Thanks 🤓
My Rx was - 8.25 R and - 8.50 L before I got lasik, so I always just figured I would have died a long time ago.
Glade to hear that you can see very well my rx us 15 R 13 L i use eye contacts cus glasses would be so huge and makes my eyes looks small lol and i wanna do a lasik surgery too but can you tell me how it did worked with you ? and how you felt after you have done it ?
Clearly, people just aren’t using lasik eye surgery as much today.
How old do yo have to be to get it and have you got it I wear glasses and have considered getting it but there were mixed reviews
@@btsfanarmybts2695
I say wait a few more years so it can improve more. The more it improves, the better your chances of success are.
@@samuraijackoff5354 damn so there's RNG involved.. man I was excited to have one done to me.. guess i'll wait
Very interesting. Thank You.
presbyopia! thanks for the wonderful new word, my friend ❤
You answered a question I’ve been pondering since I was a young child thank you I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders
Im not sure what causes short sighted ness. But I can say for a fact that my vision is perfect, untill it reaches a certain distance and is terrible.
That distance is conveniantly the distance between me and the computer monitor ive been using every day my entire life.
You've placed your computer so that you could see the screen without straining. Not exactly surprising. If you'd had better vision, you could have placed the computer a bit further away all your life and written the exact same comment!
That sounds like accommodation insufficiency, not a refractive error. You might benefit from vision therapy; ask your medical insurance if they cover it.
We learn so much from history. Awesome.
I'm extremely near sighted and used to live in a small village on a farm. I didn't know I had bad eye sight because it was just the norm for me.
It wasn't really a problem because you can still see stuff colours and general shapes. If you know that grass is green and tomatoes are red, you can guess pretty easily what is where.
Imagine leaving a painting out in the rain and having the outlines of the objects in the painting get blurred. You can still make out what each object is if you try.
I spent most of my childhood outside. I'm legally blind, nearsighted
I had wondered how levies with bad eyesight faired during battles. This gave me somewhat of an idea. Thanks.
I love this, very relaxing :).
Wow, this video really broadened my horizons. Trully an eye-opening experience that is sure to leave one gazing into the distance.
That was awesome. I actually was just in-time with the concept of "isn't it simple enough to make a big magnifying lens if you can make individual glasses" as you introduced it
im nearsighted and holy hell you guys dont understand how fast we would die without glasses
Is there a possibility that our view of near sightedness being a "modern" problem could be the result of survivorship bias?
That last line about going outside cracked me up. Excellent delivery.
Very cool vid! But I feel like you buried the lead a little when bringing up that nearsightedness has become a huge epidemic in modern times. I had no idea of that fact and I think it’s so interesting. I’ve always assumed the rates of vision impairment has been constant throughout human history as I thought it was a genetic trait. I would love to see more research into exactly why it’s a modern problem. It seems like something worth investigating.
Your other videos merely improved my knowledge of history--this one might improve my health and enjoyment of life. Thanks!
Nice video 👍
This hits home for sure.
It's definitely staring at stuff close-up for long amounts of time that creates myopia, or at least advances it.
I had great eyesight until about age 12-13. got an iPad when I was 11, stared at it every night for hours on end, needed glasses because I couldn't see the board in school without squinting. did I change my habits? nope, still stare at screens way more than I should. eyesight constantly getting worse? yep. the glasses I'm wearing right now aren't even the right prescription for me anymore.
I can tell my Chinese friends it’s because they never went outside. I knew it wasn’t just books because young Chinese kids rarely are focused on their books for any longer length of time than any other kids. But their parents just put them in front of the desk inside while they fool around 80% of the time.
I was outdoors all the time and got shortshighted.
@@somniumisdreaming Some of it is genetic -- as we saw in the video there were nearsighted people throughout history when most people would be outdoors in their childhoods
We also have to consider what outside "a lot" is. Were you inside for a lot of the school day? Did you spend hours indoors at school and with your family? For most of human evolution, we would be outside nearly all of the time.
That also explains WHY MODERN CHINESE/EAST ASIANS SKIN COLOR GETTING MORE AND MORE WHITER.
If u dont know it before, long time ago, east asians tend to work outside for farm and even fishermen. It's even worst for the fishermen. Their skin obviously the darkest there.
You can even find some photos from 1800 or something that shows u that the skin color of many Chinese koreans Japanese are not pale white. Pale white skin mostly about the nobles. Because they spend more time indoor.
Light skin color indeed, attractive. But it comes with side effects. Like.. that means that person rare to go outside.
And their skin getting weak and can easily get some kind of disorder of sun related stuff. Like.. Skin cancer or something like that.
And it's also about the inner organs too.
Like bones for example. Bones need sunlight too.
@@DBT1007 Thats BS buddy. UV exposure can Damage your Genetic Code. Especially now in this day and Age when our Ozone Layer has been Depleted to such extreme levels. We do not have Fur to protect our elastic Skins from Ionizing UV rays. Our Eyes are fragile. UV exposure to Eyes can lead to serious Eye ailments.
Humans especially Europeans were forced to live inside Caves due to Harsh Cold Winters and Rare Summer. But our Afrikaan Brothers were exposed well to the Sun due to hot climate and walked naked . They might develop good resistance to UV light but Shortened Life Spans were the usual side effects. U wud almost never encounter old Afrikaan Tribesmen as most of them were only young. As soon as they got older they would not live very long.
No matter who tells u this Exposure to Sun might have some short term benefits, but in the long run its going to damage ur mammal genes, as most mammals have Fur or complete cover of body hair to Protect from harsh environments.
Mammals for Millenia have survived Protected from UV rays one way or the other.
0:19 i got goosebump when i saw this image on the video because i live 5km away from Treviso and I have seen it several times live
lol I've actually always wondered this myself. Thanks for the video
Just found your channel cause I googled what happened to people with bad eyesight before glasses. Please keep it up and if I may suggest a topic. Do a vid on the importance of salt like during wars. Look up saltville Virginia it was a small Appalachian place that had supplied the south with most of its salt until it was taken.
"Did you invent something for my awful eyesight?!"
"Hahaha no! We invented a straw so you can suck it up!"
thanks for citing your sources, and especially for giving a direct link to the Pliny-it’s often hard to navigate old books, and Pliny is nasty to find things in.
I always imagined myself living in a convent in the past, where I could memorize routes and never be somewhere strange to get lost in when I couldn’t see. It’s interesting to hear that my historical self may have had better vision!
So interesting!!
I have extreme myopia(nearsighted) and I would probably not survive a day before glasses where invented
Exactly what I wanted to know, thank you.
Great to hear! Stay tuned--new video out soon!
@@HistoryDose good
I've always wondered this!!
It's crazy how much nearsightedness has gone up.
Like those numbers are a huuugggeeee increase.
I have a hard time believing "Lifestyle differences" can account for such an insanely drastic increase.
Really fascinating video!
I thought my optometrist appointment was yesterday but it’s not, I gotta wait like 2 weeks for my appointment, and 3 weeks for the glasses.
I literally can’t see the board in music class and I’m constantly going =
Great video, love the time and effort you put into it! Wonderful stuff. Cheers!
P.S. check out your messaging in creator studio.
This video helped me see things in a different light.
This answered a question I've had for years!
Awesome!
Daylight helps the farsighted because the iris is wide open in dim surroundings and therefore near sight is blurred. In daylight the iris closes like an aperture and helps to see objects more clearly.
This makes no sense. Near and far sightedness are determined by the shape of the lens within the eye, and the distance between the lens and the back of the eye, not the aperture size of the pupil, or movements of the muscles in the iris to open or close the pupil.
Very interesting!
I am an optometrist in Vietnam.Thanks so much for your sharing 😙
If the hypothesis about the sun exposure preventing myopia is true, then surely there'd be a strong geographic correlation.
It’s not about how potent the sunrays you are getting are, but about how much time you were exposed to the sun as a kid. In countries where kids spend more time indoors(like China and Australia), they found higher rates of myopia than countries where kids spend more time playing outdoors.
There is!
@@WEYffles actually it’s about looking at and focusing on objects far away. Which is a lot easier outside.
When it comes to magnification, I am very short sighted (-6 in both eyes). This has the side effect of allowing me to focus on things much closer than people with longer sight. I can basically focus on things as close as the end of my nose, and this essentially gives me macro-vision. I can see in clear detail things like my finger prints, or the pixels on a phone screen. So the more short-sighted you are, the less need you have for a magnifier. Maybe short-sighted people in old times were just used for this close vision ability. Sometimes it feels like a superpower tbh. Long-sighted people need magnification.
I've literally always wondered this. I hope this video has real answers.
I’ve always wondered!
Tend to disagree about the “more light” hypothesis. I was subjected to dilation drops as a child to try and curb my myopia. Utterly useless and made it extremely difficult to read. Gave up after two years as it was pointless and stupid. Easier just to wear glasses. I think this more a case of it didn’t matter because people were illiterate and it didn’t come up in everyday life.
This makes so much sense and is something I always wondered. My Dr actually told me once that I probably unintentionally trained my eyes to be nearsighted because I have always been a reader, writer, and crafter of tiny things (jeweler). I can't do my nearsighted work with contacts on because my eyes need to be able to see up close. My Dr said that many people with nearsightedness have just adapted to the use of their eyes seeing up close and it's not really that they have bad eyesight. They have a sharper nearsight which has compromised their far sight because that is not what was used as strongly. It's sort of like if you focused exercise in your upper body and neglected to strengthen your lower body to balance it out. It would naturally cause disproportion but could be rebalanced if the other muscles were strengthened.
That makes a lot of sense, yeah. Sort of a similar phenomenon to the critical phoneme development periods in childhood; if you never practice certain vocalizations before a certain age, your brain will essentially tune them out and no longer be able to distinguish them, or at least not without concerted attention. Most children will specialize in the sounds of the language or set of languages that were deemed important enough, for whatever reason, for them to learn early.
I never realized being nearsighted can mean you’re actually BETTER at seeing minute close-up details, but this definitely makes sense of why I don’t like wearing glasses while doing any kind of close work!
@@RisingSunfish yeah because nearsighted actually means you can see well up close. I didn't realize this either until my doctor explained that. It's really not that you have bad eyesight, but that your eyesight is oriented for seeing up close and your vision for far away is less developed. If you think about it, most people needed to be able to see far away more than up close until the modern ages of today where we tend to need to read and write and look at our phones & computers more. It makes sense that more people today have developed nearsightedness because of that.
@G E T R E K T really? Why? No Dr ever actually told me that but her. I guess because it's better for profits to keep your patients thinking they have something wrong with them?
@G E T R E K T I kinda suspected a much. Thanks for confirming that! I think you are right that she was an unusual type of optometrist. She did seem especially knowledgeable and honest.
Got to love the simple solutions.
I've always wondered about the history of this.
It's an interesting question.
Considering I'm nearsighted, you did make me consider what that would've meant in the past.
However, I'm only mildly nearsighted.
It's the difference between barely being able to make out anything that's in front of you, and having trouble seeing things clearly quite far away.
From my own very rough comparisons, I can see things clearly up to about half the distance of someone with more typical vision.
Or, to put it in different terms, I'm legally allowed to drive a car without any corrective lenses, so...
There's a lot of variation in 'bad' vision, and chances are high my vision is good enough that it likely wouldn't have been given much thought except for tasks where good distance vision is absolutely critical.
If being able to see something 100 metres away easily matters, then sure.
But if you're talking about seeing something 5-20 metres away, that's no big deal even without glasses, which cannot be said for some...
4:18 I call bs on that. I grew up in the 90's when us kids rarely stayed in, and we'd play outside until the street lights came on. I still got near-sighted in my late-teens when I was taking IB classes in high school and studying/reading most of the day.
I grew up in the 50s and 60s and was outside all the time. And reading when I wasn't outside. And I'm nearsighted, and have been since grade school.
@@davidm5707 Yeah, I think the correlation between studying/reading and nearsightedness is very high. I've seen these parallel bars that run across the middle of student's desks that they have in Chinese classrooms that are supposed to prevent the students from putting their face too close to their paper to prevent nearsightedness.
it is so funny that I had that same question in my head and now the video just popped up in my recommendation.
Grea video, somewhat sad that astigmatisms weren’t mentioned tho
I definitely think the going outside feature has more to do with having more far away things to look at than more sunlight but I’m interested to see research that would prove me wrong.
The theory is that there's a feedback loop to produce a hormone that signals the eye to stop growing. (Myopia is caused by the eye being longer than the focal length of the lens.) This hormone doesn't get produced if there isn't sufficient exposure to the UV wavelengths found in sunlight. It's not yet clear if this is true, but that's the theory.
@@calliarcale Ahh, thanks for the details! That's intriguing.
I have perfect eyesight yet I basically never go outside. Does this mean if I had gone outside more as a kid I would be at superhuman eyesight?
I always played outside, and never touched a computer until my late teens, nor had a phone yet I need to wear glasses for myopia
@@jarogniewtheconqueror2804 its why we say "more likely"
WTF!! I just had this thought this morning, and now it's on my UA-cam list!
A teacher once taught me to make a pinhole in a piece of paper, and look through that. It forms a primitive lens (like for a pinhole camera), and it focuses small details for reading etc. I wear specs, now, but I used to often used to make a tiny gap between my thumb and forefinger. You look daft doing it, but it works.