Bates eye method

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==The Bates method==
 
==The Bates method==
  
Underpinning the Bates method is the theory that almost all eyesight problems are caused by strain and effort, sub-optimal conditions for sight, bad habits related to seeing and visual information processing, and misdiagnosis followed by inappropriate treatment with corrective lenses.  Bates made some acknowledgement of cases where the eye had been injured by external factors, but claimed success in "curing" even these.  Eliminate all trace of "strain" and "effort" in seeing, he claimed, and normal vision is the natural result.  Bates believed that mastering his techniques can produce the complete absence of effort and, with it, the claimed health benefits.
+
Underpinning the Bates method is the theory that almost all eyesight problems are caused by strain and effort, sub-optimal conditions for sight, bad habits related to seeing and visual information processing, and [[misdiagnosis]] followed by inappropriate treatment with corrective lenses.  Bates made some acknowledgement of cases where the eye had been injured by external factors, but claimed success in "curing" even these.  Eliminate all trace of "strain" and "effort" in seeing, he claimed, and normal vision is the natural result.  Bates believed that mastering his techniques can produce the complete absence of effort and, with it, the claimed health benefits.
  
 
The key to the method is the "perfect memory of black".  Straying from merely flawed opthalmology into the world of pure [[woo]], Bates concluded that a person able to achieve this memory of perfect blackness, in the absence of strain or effort, would be cured of their sight problems.
 
The key to the method is the "perfect memory of black".  Straying from merely flawed opthalmology into the world of pure [[woo]], Bates concluded that a person able to achieve this memory of perfect blackness, in the absence of strain or effort, would be cured of their sight problems.

Revision as of 14:23, 14 February 2014

Against allopathy

Alternative medicine

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Alternative articles
In this way I discovered many facts which had not previously been known, and which I was quite unable to reconcile with the orthodox teachings on the subject. This led me to undertake the series of experiments already alluded to. The results were in entire harmony with my previous observations, and left me no choice but to reject the entire body of orthodox teaching about accommodation and errors of refraction.
William Horatio Bates, M.D. The Cure of Imperfect Sight by Treatment Without Glasses, 1920


The Bates eye method is an alternative therapy that purports to "cure" defective eyesight and diseases of the eye by means of specific exercises. It is based on the work and theories of William Horatio Bates, a medical doctor and eye specialist practicing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although rejected and later soundly debunked by his peers [1], Bates' method was readily adopted into the alternative medicine and health freedom scenes, where it became interwoven with nutritional and other pseudoscience.

According to Bates' theory, set forth for the layperson in his 1920 book The Cure of Imperfect Sight by Treatment Without Glasses, refractive errors such as myopia (short-sightedness) are caused not by physiological characteristics of the eye, but by a combination of "strain" and incorrect habits of visual information processing. The Bates method comprises a set of self-help techniques that aim to relieve all "strain" and "effort", and to re-educate the patient in how to see. Correctly used, Bates claimed, his methods restore perfect eyesight without the need for corrective eye-wear, surgery, drugs or other mainstream medical interventions. In fact, under the Bates model, these orthodox practices are actively harmful.

Bates did not confine his claims to refractive eyesight problems. He claimed that the very same methods could cure eye infections, glaucoma and cataract; that they could be used to cure fever, fatigue, shock, hay fever, rheumatism and whooping cough,[2] to alleviate chronic or acute [3] pain to the point of dispensing with anesthesia and morphine, and to render soldiers in trench warfare impervious to its discomforts.[4]

Contents

Background

Dr. Bates and his disciples claimed that their system of eye exercises eliminates not only nearsightedness and farsightedness but also certain diseases like glaucoma and cataract. Now when you try to get rid of nearsightedness by futile exercises, you are merely wasting your time and money. But if you are suffering from glaucoma...the time wasted in the hocus-pocus is irretrievably lost and you might lose your sight as a result.
Martin Ackerman, M.D., foreword to The Truth About Eye Exercises, Philip Pollack, M.D., 1956


Bates rejected the mainstream explanation for accommodation [5], which is the process whereby the eye maintains focus on an object as viewing distance changes. Mainstream optometry holds that the ciliary muscle, located within the eye, is responsible for accommodation, and acts by varying the curvature of the lens. Vision is also affected by the basic shape of the eyeball. Bates subscribed [6] to an older theory that accommodation occurs, instead, when the muscles surrounding the eyeball act to temporarily alter the shape of the eyeball itself. (Imagine squeezing a rubber ball in the hand - it elongates when squeezed, then regains its original shape when the pressure is removed.)

It sounds like an academic vanity squabble of no interest to anyone but optometrists and ophthalmologists, until one considers the real world implications. If Bates was right after all, then it follows that everyone who has ever been prescribed corrective glasses, contact lenses or laser surgery for a refractive sight issue has been misdiagnosed on the basis of faulty science, and inappropriately treated by the medical profession. If Bates' theory can be proven then the entire body of eye care professionals has been willfully ignoring a better and less invasive way to treat eye problems for 100 years or more, and nobody but Bates has made a serious effort to raise the alarm in spite of absolutely overwhelming evidence that should be obvious to anyone who examines eyes for a living. Which would make it a pretty massive conspiracy.

Conversely, if Bates was wrong then those who "throw away their glasses" on his recommendation, or who delay proper treatment for their eyes in favour of "eye exercises" and a bit of associated woo, may be endangering their sight, and are definitely throwing away the contents of their wallet, on egregious quackery.

Throw away your glasses! (Or not.)

It has been definitely proven that practically all the defects of the eyes can be cured without glasses...
Bates-Macfadden Strong Eyes correspondence course, advert in Physical Culture Magazine, Aug. 1918


Mainstream optometry aims to detect refractive sight problems, such as short-sightedness (myopia), and then compensate for their effects with artificial corrective lenses. As an alternative to corrective appliances there is laser surgery, which corrects refractive sight problems by physically altering the shape of the cornea. Certain conditions, for example squint and binocular vision ("seeing double"), are treated with the practice of orthoptics, which works to strengthen and coordinate eye function. These and other eye problems may require corrective surgery, or medication. There is no claim in the medical mainstream of a universal cure for sight problems. In spite of advances in detection, corrective treatment and pharmacology, there are still patients whose sight problems are beyond the help of modern medicine.

The Bates method addresses all sight problems with a blend of relaxation and visualisation exercises, self-help psychology, and some potentially dangerous woo. In his book, Bates claimed that his method had "cured" every type of refractive error, along with colour-blindness, squint, cataract (the clouding of the lens) and glaucoma (excess pressure in the eyeball leading to irreversible damage to the relevant nerves). The Bates method, at least according to Bates and his most devout followers, can cure practically everyone of imperfect sight. Sometimes in a matter of minutes.

Modern Bates method practitioners tend to be more conservative, or at least more litigation-conscious, in their approach to glasses-disposal. While they may strongly recommend doing without corrective eyewear and shunning laser surgery, they advise that patients should not break the law by driving a motor vehicle without being able to see to the legally required standard, as measured by actual science.

The Bates method

Underpinning the Bates method is the theory that almost all eyesight problems are caused by strain and effort, sub-optimal conditions for sight, bad habits related to seeing and visual information processing, and misdiagnosis followed by inappropriate treatment with corrective lenses. Bates made some acknowledgement of cases where the eye had been injured by external factors, but claimed success in "curing" even these. Eliminate all trace of "strain" and "effort" in seeing, he claimed, and normal vision is the natural result. Bates believed that mastering his techniques can produce the complete absence of effort and, with it, the claimed health benefits.

The key to the method is the "perfect memory of black". Straying from merely flawed opthalmology into the world of pure woo, Bates concluded that a person able to achieve this memory of perfect blackness, in the absence of strain or effort, would be cured of their sight problems.

Palming

The patient gently covers the closed eyes with the palms of their hands to provide complete darkness. The colour and shade seen by the patient while palming is apparently of diagnostic value.

Visualisation

In conjunction with palming, or with the eyes closed. Perfectly remembering, without strain or effort, the colour black. Bates later found that other colours would work too if the patient preferred them, as would an object like a jewel. The perfectly remembering without strain or effort - that's the key. Bates appears not to have considered that memorising the letters on a Snellen test card ≠ being able to see it perfectly all of a sudden.

Swinging and shifting

Harder to define based on a reading of Bates' works, and the area in which later practitioners have most substantially altered the original method. A part of it seems to involve inducing brief optical illusions that are then held up as "proof" that the patient has, beneath their functional eyesight problems, perfectly healthy eyes. In other parts, the exercises lean more towards orthodox orthoptics, and in still other parts towards "eye yoga".

Sunning

Light is good for the eyes and makes them healthy. Avoidance of light leads to unhealthy eyes. Expose the eyes to lots and lots of light, up to and including staring directly at the sun, and shining the rays of the sun directly into the eye with a magnifying glass. (Please don't do this![7])

Argumentum ad populum

With the rejection of his theories by professional ophthalmologists and optometrists, and with the publication of his book detailing the theory, his methods and his alleged successes for the layperson, Bates' work achieved a cult-like following within the alternative medicine scene of the early- to mid-20th century. In the hands of unqualified eye practitioners, the Bates eye method quickly became entangled with nutritional, medical and lifestyle advice from the similarly unqualified. In the field of alternative medicine, argumentum ad populum is often the standard of proof, and thus the Bates method found acceptance. In the field of alternative therapy, proponents need not bother devising an objective experiment to prove or disprove whether a subject is, at any given moment, perfectly remembering the colour black.

As Dr. Pollack shows, the apparent "successes" of the Bates system are based on the fact that Batesism is essentially a mental healing cult. Significant is his reference to a statement by Dr. Bates that cures by "palming" are probably in the same category as cures reported by Christian Scientists and other practitioners of faith-healing.
Martin Ackerman, M.D., foreword to The Truth About Eye Excercises, Philip Pollack, M.D., 1956


Bernarr MacFadden

Physical Culture Magazine guru and early health freedom crusader Bernarr Macfadden collaborated with Bates on an eye-training correspondence course named Strong Eyes, advertised via Macfadden's Physical Culture Magazine,[8]. MacFadden wrote a later book entitled Strengthening the Eyes, with the method somewhat simplified and adapted to his own healthy-lifestyle philosophy. Some of his health crusades appear progressive with hindsight; he criticised smoking and poor diet and favoured birth control, plenty of physical exercise and fresh air, and a positive sex message aimed at both men and women. On the other hand, Macfadden also claimed with equal doggedness to sell the guaranteed cure for baldness,[9] and was an outspoken opponent of vaccination.[10] Bates and his unproven, "natural" method fit right in to the Macfadden heath empire and its crusade against mainstream healthcare, while Macfadden's endorsement and marketing of Bates' theories lend them little extra credibility in the absense of any more scientific proof than the baldness cure.

External links

Footnotes

  1. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b4399673?urlappend=%3Bseq=7 The Truth About Eye Exercises, Dr. Philip Pollack, 1956
  2. https://archive.org/stream/cureofimperfects00bateuoft#page/202/mode/2upThe Cure of Imperfect Sight by Treatment Without Glasses, William Horatio Bates, 1920, Pg.202
  3. https://archive.org/stream/cureofimperfects00bateuoft#page/204/mode/2upThe Cure of Imperfect Sight by Treatment Without Glasses, William Horatio Bates, 1920, Pg.204
  4. https://archive.org/stream/cureofimperfects00bateuoft#page/288/mode/2upThe Cure of Imperfect Sight by Treatment Without Glasses, William Horatio Bates, 1920, Pg.288
  5. https://archive.org/stream/cureofimperfects00bateuoft#page/22/mode/2upThe Cure of Imperfect Sight by Treatment Without Glasses, William Horatio Bates, 1920, Pg.23
  6. https://archive.org/stream/cureofimperfects00bateuoft#page/38/mode/2upThe Cure of Imperfect Sight by Treatment Without Glasses, William Horatio Bates, 1920, Pg.38
  7. Catholics treated for eye injuries after staring at the sun in order to see a vision of Mary.
  8. Physical Culture 1918-08, Vol. 40, No. 02, Pg. 65
  9. http://libx.bsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/PhyCul/id/4229 Physical Culture 1929-11, Vol. 62, No. 05, Pg.22
  10. http://libx.bsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/PhyCul/id/3585 Physical Culture 1939-12, Vol. 82, No. 06, Pg.10
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