[MR] Eyeglasses!

[Stefan li Rous]

Bambi said:
<<< I am very near sihted and am now getting so my near vision also  
doesnt work  i cant read my cell phone at the end of my fulle extended  
arm and yet cant tell who is waving to me from across the street  
without some form of correction. >>>

Geez. I've never been able to read my cell phone and certainly not a  
book from a foot away.  And yes, I suppose a bunch of people think I'm  
unfriendly or stuck-up when they greet me from twenty-feet away and I  
can't recognize them. The number of unique outfits in the SCA does  
help though.

<<< Poor eyeaite was common. So were headaches/migraines.>>>

Yes, and it was known to get worse with age and more common among  
scholars. But this was farsightedness, not nearsightedness. The lenses  
when they became available late in period helped solve the former, but  
no the latter, and not astigmatism, which probably wasn't understood  
until well after period.

<<< The difference was natural lighting progreesion, a slower paced  
life ( riding an ox cart doe not male me carsick with no glasses,  
riding a car @ 40 mph does!) and food with put aditives made it more  
bareable.>>>

Luckily that carsickness has never affected me. It means my wife  
doesn't wish to read on the way to SCA events and that allows me to  
read during that time!

<<< That and folk were just plain used to it. Many wimes i go to  
pennsic for 1 weeks and leave everything but a magnifying glass for  
reading in my car.i try not to leave site for the whole time (often  
succeed) and keep farmers hours. >>>

Magnifying glasses were known and used in period. Period-looking ones  
are easy to find. Since all the period glasses I've seen also used the  
round lense shape, it makes finding period glasses more difficult.

<<< I do find by the middle of the first week i kind of get into the  
zone...not saying everyone should try this instead pf period glasses  
but it is a bit of the medeivals experience that entertains me though  
as usual the whole documenting thing e
ludes me. >>>

I've heard of SCA fighters with milder eyesight problems who got used  
to fighting without glasses. Then got glasses they could wear while in  
armor, and found that they keep reacting to movements they couldn't  
see before, and which still weren't a problem and went back to  
fighting without glasses.

Stefan

--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****