Daily Diary, April 29, 2022, Day 608: As I expected, I came home yesterday from a 2 hour dentist appointment with a new crown and a gaping hole where another very old crown was removed, the tooth extracted, and the initial implant screwed in. I am scheduled to get the new tooth in 4 months. Mostly my whole mouth was sore from all the activity, and I spent the much of the day taking it easy. However, by late afternoon I was bored and started to do a little research, which is the basis of today’s Historical Tidbits.
I had decided to expand a bit on the possible reasons why a young character (Mrs. Stein’s grandson Georgie) might be having trouble at school. He’s eight, the age when I first got glasses (I am farsighted with astigmatism in both eyes) so I was curious to find out how farsightedness in children was handled in the 19th century.
I haven’t found a good article on how children diagnosed or treated, but I did learn that by the 1600s it was understood that concave lenses corrected for myopia (nearsightedness) and convex lenses corrected for hyperopia (farsightedness). Yet, it wasn’t until 1801 that astigmatism was “discovered” and the first cylindrical lenses to correct for this were developed in 1821.
However, through most of the 19th century when someone needed to correct their eyesight they went to an optician, who had various frames and various lenses for sale, often imported. In fact, until the Civil War, most people who were looking for spectacles would simply try on different glasses until they found a pair that make it easier to see!
The first “trial lens case” was developed in 1843, which meant that for the first time an optician had a bunch of different lenses for a customer to try and this would permit a prescription for the correct lens to be written, separate from the selling of glasses. Then a person could have their lens crafted specifically for them.
However, the first eye chart to help determine what that prescription should be, wasn’t invented until 1862, and the first college specializing in optometry was only started in 1872. And while the ophthalmology courses were taught in the UC Berkeley medical school in the 19th century they were directed at diseases of the eye and surgical interventions. Courses on optometry weren’t offered by UC campuses until the 20th century. Most opticians, therefore, started out either as skilled craftsmen (often jewelers) who made things like lenses for telescopes as well as glasses, or they were small business men who bought glasses wholesale for their customers to try on.
In 1881 there were eleven opticians listed in the San Francisco city directory, while there were twenty-two listed as the makers of optical goods. I am assuming that my character would be taken to one of the listed opticians, preferably one of the seven that also made optical goods, to get the correct lenses that could be placed in a frame that would fit him as a child.
This link will tell you more than you probably want to know about the history of glasses (primarily frames) in the Victorian Era. I, of course, found it fascinating and a good use of my time recuperating from my dental work.