Mkwild4.txt


"Visual Refractive Errors of Wild and Laboratory Monkeys"

Francis A.  Young Ph.D.  Pullman, Washington.

E.E.N.T.  Digest, Volume 27, Pages 55-71 August, 1965


Measurements:

1.  Wild Monkeys (The control group)

     N = 286 eyes (of wild monkeys) had their refractive state
measured.  The refractive state (average) was +0.68.  The standard
deviation was 0.73 diopters.

     These wild rhesus monkeys were in captivity less than 10
weeks with the average being 6 weeks.


     ===================================

     In order to understand the nature of "man" living in the open
(which is very rare today) we must sample from a large population
of natural eyes in the wild.  To get the true refractive profile,
it is necessary to use the primate eye.

     For sake of SLIGHT simplification of this Rhesus living it
the wild, let us choose:

     Mean or average = 0.7 diopters

     Standard Deviation = 0.7 diopters.

     What does this mean?

     If you drew this from 10,000 monkeys in the wild, this would
be their distribution of young, adolescent primates (and man - if
he lived in the "wild").

     Let us call this new picture of the living eye as a "dynamic
eye" paradigm.

     These measurements were made by "classic" induced paralysis,
and measurement with a retinascope.  Considered to be the exclusive
OBJECTIVE, or accepted measurement.

     From standard statistics, then,

     68 percent of the monkey's refractive states will fall
between zero and +1.4 diopters.

     96 percent will fall between -0.7 to +2.1 diopters.

     But let us be clear.

1.  An eye paralyzed with atropine or cyclogel, can have 20/20 on
     the Snellen.

2.  A NORMAL difference in refractive STATE between the two eyes
     can be from +1/2 to +3/4 diopters.  You will "see" with the
     better of two eyes.

     Thus, we can say that 95.5 percent of all individuals living IN
THE OPEN, will have vision that will pass almost all DMV tests.

     That must be the starting point -- for evaluating the natural
eye's ability to change its refractive STATE when placed in a
"confined" environment.

     Currently Hong Kong high school students are 85 percent
myopic.

     This can be an a natural process.

     When the ability of the eye to adapt its refractive state to
a "nearer" environment, the verification exceeds a "Z" of 3.9, where
anything above is virtual certainty -- that the living
eye is dynamic system, and not the ray-trace Donders-Helmholtz
"picture" of the eye.

     It is hard to escape the reality that we are dealing with a
natural eye behaving as you would expect a well-designed
auto-focused camera to behave.

     But then, we must not denigrate the behavior of the natural
eye because it can have a positive refractive STATE, as well as a
negative refractive STATE -- as a natural and essential process of
its design.

     That is the source of the concept of the SCIENTIFIC 
second-opinion.


     Best,

     Otis