“The Emperor Nero, who was short sighted, occupied the imperial box at the Coliseum, and, to look down into the arena, a space covering six acres, the area of the Coliseum, was obliged, as Pliny says, to look through a ring with a gem in it—­no doubt a concave glass—­to see more clearly the sword play of the gladiators.  Again, we read of Mauritius, who stood on the promontory of his island and could sweep over the sea with an optical instrument to watch the ships of the enemy.  This tells us that the telescope is not a modern invention.”

Lord Kingsborough, speaking of the ancient Mexicans, says:  “They were acquainted with many scientific instruments of strange invention, whether the telescope may not have been of the number is uncertain, but the thirteenth plate of Dupaix’s Monuments, part second, which represents a man holding something of a similar nature to his eye, affords reason to suppose that they knew how to improve the powers of vision.

Our first positive knowledge of spectacles is gathered from the writings of Roger Bacon, who died in 1292.[3] Bacon says:  “This instrument (a plano-convex glass or large segment of a sphere) is useful to old men and to those who have weak eyes, for they may see the smallest letters sufficiently magnified.”

[Footnote 3:  Med. and Surg.  Reporter.]

Alexander de Spina, who died in 1313, had a pair of spectacles made for himself by an optician who had the secret of their invention.  De Spina was so much pleased with them that he made the invention public.

Monsieur Spoon fixes the date of the invention between 1280 and 1311.  In a manuscript written in 1299 by Pissazzo, the author says:  “I find myself so pressed by age that I can neither read nor write without those glasses they call spectacles, lately invented, to the great advantage of poor old men when their sight grows weak.”  Friar Jordan, who died in Pisa in 1311, says in one of his sermons, which was published in 1305, that “it is not twenty years since the art of making spectacles was found out, and is indeed one of the best and most necessary inventions in the world.”  In the fourteenth century spectacles were not uncommon and Italy excelled in their manufacture.  From Italy the art was carried into Holland, then to Nuremberg, Germany.  In a church in Florence is a fresco representing St. Jerome (1480).  Among the several things represented is an inkhorn, pair of scissors, etc.  We also find a pair of spectacles, or pince-nez—­the glasses are large and round and framed in bone.

It was not until 1575 that Maurolicus, of Messina, pointed out the cause of near sightedness and far sightedness and explained how concave glasses corrected the former and convex glasses the latter defect.

In the wake of advanced, education stalks the spectacle age.  Any one watching a passing crowd cannot fail but note the great number of people wearing spectacles.  Unfortunately it is not limited to adults, but our youths of both sexes go to make up this army of ametropes.