TELESCOPE EYEGLASSES MAKE THE BLIND SEE (Mar, 1933)
TELESCOPE EYEGLASSES MAKE THE BLIND SEE
Telescope eyeglasses, just perfected by a New York optometrist, will enable forty percent of persons incapacitated by blindness to return to normal work, the American Academy of Optometry was told recently. The powerful lenses enable a patient with only two per cent of normal vision, ordinarily classed as total blindness, to see clearly. Because of their high power the glasses distort objects slightly.
Yes, these Telescope Glasses actually MAKE the blind see – Whether they want to or not! And none of this sissified “at arm”s length” reading range stuff, either. They’ll be doing their reading on billboards a half mile away! 40% of persons incapacitated by blindness will return to normal work, but if you’re one of the 60% who won’t be, you can use your new-found ocular power to keep a watchful, telescope eye out for that prosperity they say is a-comin’ soon!
You weren’t held much as a child, were you??
But seriously folks, although it sounds funny to us today, it’s an archaic usage actually made popular by a hymn:
Lord, I Was Blind
by William Matson (1833-1899)
The last part of which reads:
Lord, Thou hast made the blind to see,
The deaf to hear, the dumb to speak,
The dead to live; and lo, I break
The chains of my captivity.
Ok, so if normal glasses cost an arm and a leg in 2010… how much did these cost in 1933??? OY!!