Caution on Sun Treatment

Sun treatment or sunning as it is popularly known is a famous technique advocated by Bates. I read that some people promoted sunning with open eyes. Not only that but they also recommend using magnifying glass. I do not recommend it. It’s very easy to burn your retina and the consequences will be tragic. It also takes precise distance from the eye to magnifying glass that is hard to calculate. The afterimage of the sun may be long lasting too and might be a contributing factor to floaters.

I heard that members of an Indian sect that look directly at the sun eventually go blind. In India it’s considered a sign of spiritual devotion or something like that. But the fact is that they lose their sight.

Bates himself claimed that some people can look directly at the sun without any harm. There is even a picture in the original book (see online version) that shows a woman and a child supposedly looking at the sun. And they are not even squinting! I find it hard to believe that people with normal sight would look at the sun and not squint. For this very reason the passage was removed in later edition.

Come to think of it, there are probably people who can look directly at the sun. But my guess is they are in minority and as rare as people with, say, 80/20 vision. Bates, like others in the similar circumstances, picked up cases that illustrated his point without indicating how common they were. All the “instant cure’ cases belong to this category too.

The people promoting open eyes sunning technique report no ill effect. Well, some people can swallow nails without any harm too. It does not mean that we should follow them.

Here’s another good one. On one of the eyesight forum somebody recommended eyewash that contained cayenne pepper as one of the ingredients. Hmm… I don’t think I am going to try this one.

So take any advice with a grain of salt and exercise caution. Not everybody out there is an expert. And what works for one will not necessarily work for another.