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such as defects in electric installation, would seem of themselves enough without adding to them the carelessness of smokers.
The subjective elements hardly admit of inclusion within general measures of prevention.
Short-sightedness is a purely personal defect. It can be corrected by the oculist. Not that instruments should be placed at the entry to cinemas to gauge the eye-sight of each spectator, but some rational form of propaganda might acquaint parents and those in charge of the physical and spiritual welfare of children of the danger a shortsighted child runs in visiting the cinema too frequently or without proper spectacles.
After a certain hour of the evening the cinema should be forbidden to children under 16, children, that is, who are normally most tired by the day's work. This could be a matter for the law. Sleep, it should be remembered, is part of a child's nourishment and is the first condition for regaining strength lost or impaired. The old saying that children should not see sunrise or sunset is hardly applicable to our modern life, but it contains a solid truth worth the consideration of those entrusted with the care of the young. During the night-hours, which are the most dangerous to their health, physically and morally, children should not be left to their own devices.
There remains the question of the kind of show. A dull film is physically and mentally tiring and, as a natural effect, fatigues the eyes of the youthful observer; the only remedy would seem to lie in recommending adults who take children to the pictures to choose films suitable for the children rather than for themselves. Then there is the extremely dramatic love-film which works on the nerves, causes moral depression and physical and psychical disturbances which are bound also to react upon the eyes. This brings us to the question of censorship. Is it not a further reason for distinguishing between films that may be shown to everyone and films suitable only for persons above a certain age?
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The observations suggested by the enquiry are many and varied, but they can be quickly summed up in a few main proposals, all of the technical or moral order, to which the right answer is not hard to find.
Technical defects are by no means the only cause of eye-fatigue, since the smaller localities, in which the cinemas are as a rule less well-equipped and up-to-date and where more or less worn films are regularly projected, furnish a smaller proportion of complaints than the big towns. There is no doubt, therefore, that other factors contribute to produce eyetrouble, factors having their origin in the conditions of life in our big cities: physical, mental and emotional strain, which especially in growing children leads to exhaustion and diminished powers of resistance; the use and abuse of strong light for study and reading and in public places; late hours and even food conditions.