Introduction
Normal vision is essential for carrying out our day-to-day activities efficiently. Defective vision is a handicap and total loss of it is not only a personal tragedy but a national one too. In India lack of health education, unhygienic living conditions and malnutrition contribute greatly to the problems related to the eyes. Of course,that curse of modern society, the television, is the greatest single factor responsible for defective vision among urban people, especially children.
According to a World Health Organisation study, there are more than 10 million people in the world today who are totally blind. Most countries are now realising the urgent need to deal with the problem of blindness, and have various programmes and plans for its prevention and cure. These include, among other things, extensive use of the audio-visual media for mass education.
India too is making tremendous efforts in this direction. Eye-camps are set up with teams of doctors and paramedical staff working day and night to perform operations on a mass scale. Patients trudge along for miles to avail of these facilities. According to the surveys conducted, 1.3 million patients in India need to be treated by surgery every year but the total capacity is only for 80,000 patients.
The Government and voluntary agencies both need to intensify their efforts to remove this lacuna.
Various seminars, workshops and other programmes are conducted regularly to highlight the problem of blindness and discuss ways and means of dealing with it.
The most important thing is to educate the masses and to make them understand the precautions to be taken to prevent defective eyesight. People should cooperate with the doctors to eradicate blindness from the country.
In this book, I have tried to speak to our readers with the help of illustrations. According to me, the principal cause of defective vision is overstraining the eyes, nervous tension, wrong use of the eyes and a wrong diet. A simple way out of this is mental relaxation, learning the correct use of eyes and proper balanced diet with Vitamin A. I have also tried simple and effective treatment with herbal medicines and the latest orthoptic treatment.
It is my sincere hope that this book will be of benefit to the young and the old, in our country and elsewhere.
I
gratefully acknowledge the love and affection of my friend Late Dr.
B.M. Sinha (Editor, Evening News), Shri Rajendra Awasthy (Editor,
Kadambani) and Ms. Madhvi Malhotra of Hind Pocket Books who inspired me
to write this book.
I also pay my homage to my Gurudev, Shri
Aurobindo, The Mother and my late father Dr. R.S. Agarwal, a pioneer
innatural treatment of eye diseases.
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Himalayas |
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(Dr. M.S. Agarwal) |
