A histrionic acquaintance of mine was waxing melodramatic one day about the “forbidden stitch” in Chinese embroidery – a knot stitch so tiny that women went blind from doing the intricate work.
I do beadwork with itty-bitty seed beads, but I have good light to work by, and I never feel anything I would equate to “eye strain.” And my eyes aren’t that great at my age.
So my question is…can you really “go blind” from doing close, intricate work? Is light a factor? If you can “go blind,” what is the nature of the loss of vision?
And then there’s the whole “Don’t sit so close to the TV – you’ll ruin your eyes!” thing.
The other thing that’s supposed to make you go blind…well, I’d be using a guide dog and a white cane if that were true, so I won’t include that in my general inquiry.
As usual, I cannot provide any cites or medical authority, but everything I have hard has lead me to believe that it is possible to damage your eyesight so badly that you are unable to continue doing the activity that caused the strain, though you wouldn’t actually go blind. This is, as far as I know, what happened to the diarist Samuel Pepys. He spend so much time reading and writing by candlelight that eventually, his eyes got so bad he was obliged to stop (I am reading Pepys diary through the “live” daily feed, and got all choked up the first time he mentions his eyes bothering him, which happened within the last six months). In India, “ruby picking” is a job that people only hold for a couple of years, because they become incapable of spotting tiny rubies in the sand.
I assume that light, magnification, and proper optical correction are all key to preventing eyestrain, which is why you don’t suffer.