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Other eye facts of non-primates: nearly all hoofed animals have horizontal openings for pupils, to see where they graze. Pupils of cats (tree-hunters) contract vertically. But lions, which are cats, have round pupils. Inside the eyes of cats, dogs and other hunters is a tapetum lncidum (shining carpet) which reflects light well, enables them to see better in the dark than humans. Primitive man "was eater by day, eaten by night. And this is one reason why human children, even to the present moment, dread the dark instinctively and often terribly. It is also the reason why, for long ages, the human race lived, by night, in caves or in lake dwellings." Horses can see almost nothing above their heads because the lower part of the equine eye is practically blind. The upper part has a tapetum which emits a bluish scintillation and enables a horse to travel well in the dark. In humans a similar reflecting tapetum has degenerated and reflects little light.
Prodigious Dr. Shastid says the human eye was evolved to look at distant objects. In the last three generations, he reasons, "book education has become almost universal. . . . [Man] reads, writes, repairs watches, cuts gems, examines pictures, and so forth. Nature has sought valiantly, in two very different ways, one bad, one good, to help his eyes adjust themselves to the new set of conditions. The bad way has been to make him nearsighted. The near-sighted eye is at rest when looking at near objects, but always it is a diseased eye. . . . The good method used by nature to help man in his modern conditions of existence has been the strengthening of his focusing apparatus for near points: chiefly, that is the improvement of the elasticity of the lens."
*Founder-president of "Give the People Their Own War Power Inc."; inventor of eye, ear, nose and throat instruments; contributor, translator (French, German, Latin, Greek), collaborator and editor of eye texts and journals. and of medical biographies: author of The Duke of Duluth, Simon of Cyrcnc; onetime associate editor of the Michigan Law Review; fellow of the American Medical Association. American College of Physicians, American College of Surgeons.