Reading Types.

IN a previous communication (Law, 1951), the desirability of standardizing reading types was stated. The present confused situation was reviewed, and at the instigation of the Faculty of Ophthalmologists, various suggestions designed to clarify it were put forward and comments asked for. As a result suggestions were received from forty sources. These were all carefully studied and collated; they were considered by the Council of the Faculty, and many of them were adopted. The present writer has now been entrusted with the task of preparing a memorandum embodying the Council's final recommendations. The investigation revealed that the main divergence of opinion arose from the question whether reading charts should be standardized on a strictly scientific basis, or whether they should consist merely of a non-scientific series of pleasing standard graduated types. The first is clearly desirable when an accurate relative assessment is being made for comparative purposes; the second is an obvious everyday need. The Council has accordingly decided to recommend the incorporation of both in a standard test of near vision. The requirements of the first can be satisfactorily achieved by a photographic reduction of the Snellen type. If this type be reduced to 1/17 of its normal size, the letters in the 6/6 line N subtend 5 minutes at a distance which very closely approximates T P to 35 cm. or 14 in., which is an average reading distance. An x u z example of a Snellen distance chart thus reduced is shown in the AZF D Figure. This Figure has been printed from a reduced photoH.TAzUF graphic reproduction. Careful attention will have to be paid to the reproduction to be used for the reading test, for it is obvious that the example given here leaves much to be desired. FIGURE. Reduction from a larger original would probably meet the case. tance chart The two main objections to the second are that the deciphering reduced to of difficult words is helped by those which precede and follow, si/ze. and that ascenders and descenders materially assist in the recognition of single words. The first objection may be largely met by ensuring that the selected passages shall not be of too simple a nature, in this sense: while it is not desirable that they should contain many difficult