Since ancient times, myopia has plagued countless Chinese people.
From Du Fu, the great poet who "looks like mist in old age", to Ouyang Xiu, the great writer who "it is always difficult to read, but it makes people listen to it";
From "night faint like the lamp will be out, toward the dark long doubt mirror is not grinding" poem magic Bai Juyi, to "Maung sleep short-sighted" scholar Ji Xialan;
From Lu Xun's self-mockery of "although I have binoculars, I have no myopia" to Emperor Yongzheng who "I am such a man"...
To this day, nearly half of the Chinese people are still trapped in a chaotic world without best place to buy eyeglasses. But these glasses, they're a real foreign thing. From the 9th to 13th centuries AD, people made glass into "reading stones", which could be placed on paper to enlarge the text content when used. In the mid-13th century, Roger Bacon, an Englishman, was walking in his garden when he saw that the veins of leaves were greatly enlarged through the rain drops on the spider's web, and after this principle, the first magnifying glass was born.
In the late 13th century, Italian opticians Almato and Spina invented the earliest eyeglasses, making Venice the earliest eyeglass manufacturing center. The first pair of wearable glasses let the lens finally have its own haven, and a trend of aristocratic glasses was set off.
Even if the Ming Dynasty had a national policy of "plate not allowed to enter the sea", it could not stop the popularity of glasses.
The Ming Dynasty writer Tian Yiheng social custom notes "stay green day" describes: "Every look at the article, the eyes faint, do not distinguish the details, to cover the eyes, the spirit does not scatter, the pen letter Ming." With silk silk, tied to the back of the head, people do not know, to ask more. I said: here 叆 (ai) 叇 (dai) also." Zhao Xihu, a writer of the Southern Song Dynasty, also recorded in his book Dongtian Qinglu, "叆叇, old people cannot distinguish books, so they can see clearly when they cover their eyes." 叆叇 -- the reading glasses of ancient times.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, "glasses" were a luxury item that only a few rich people and aristocrats could afford. Ye Mengzhu, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, said in the Review of the World: "In the late Ming Dynasty, glass glasses were imported from the West, and the price of each pair was as high as four or five ounces of silver. But in the reign of Kangxi, Suzhou and Hangzhou became the manufacturing base, and glasses fell to four, five, or even two or three points, and everyone could afford them."
Behind this, it is the credit of the lens grinding machine invented by the Chinese themselves - the tractor. In the early years of Chongzhen Ming Dynasty, there was an outstanding technician in the history of Suzhou glasses, named Sun Yunqiu, who saw people with poor vision was very painful, and it was inconvenient to use a single mirror. After repeated tests, the mechanical principle was used to invent a lens grinding machine - a pull car. Because of the mastery of the core technology of lens grinding, the Chinese began mass production, the price of glasses from the sky to the ground, into the homes of ordinary people. Unfortunately, he died young, but he left behind a scientific and technological production of "Mirror history", which has been influencing the production of lenses for future generations.
The axis of the Chinese eye is getting longer and longer
In 2020, the National Health Commission released the White Paper on China's Eye Health, which surprised everyone. From 2016 to 2020, the number of nearsighted people in China skyrocketed from 540 million to 660 million. Children and adolescents myopia degree is particularly serious, myopia rate as high as 52.7%, the world's first. Among them, the myopia rate of 6-year-old children is 14.3%, primary school students are 35.6%, junior high school students are 71.1%, and high school students are 80.5%.
Therefore, in 2018, the Ministry of Education, the National Health Commission and other eight departments jointly issued the "Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Children and adolescents Myopia Implementation Plan", which directly issued the target: 2018-2023, the myopia rate will be reduced by 0.5 percentage points per year; By 2030, the myopia rate of 6-year-old children should be controlled at about 3%, the myopia rate of primary school students should be reduced to less than 38%, the myopia rate of middle school students should be reduced to less than 60%, and the myopia rate of high school students should be reduced to less than 70%. More importantly, the prevention and control of myopia in children and adolescents has also been included in government performance assessment indicators.
With strong policy promotion and positive response from the public, the myopia prevention and control market for children and adolescents is embracing unprecedented development opportunities. But in reality, anxious parents are still being reaped in bulk by false perceptions. Many people do not understand the correct way to prevent myopia, nor can they stop their children's increasing glasses. Prevention and control of myopia requires scientific knowledge of prevention and control, correct guidance, let us work together to care for children's eyes, so that they have a bright future!
