BLINDNESS IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Statistics on the causes and on the prevalence of blindness in the United States are so few that it is doubtful whether we have anything near an appropriate conception of either. On the causes of blindness there are only the reports which have come from Missouri, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington, Louisiana and Indiana in the past twenty years and one report on the causes of blindness in children. These are lacking in uniformity and cover relatively small groups of cases, of which only small percentages are included in the etiologic tables. On the prevalence of blindness the federal census report cannot be considered at best more than a rough and misleading estimate, owing partly to the absence of ophthalmic examinations. Approximate figures on incidence, based on the annual census of new students entering the various state schools for the blind, are offered by the National Society for the