Charming
the eyes have it? - Printable Version

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the eyes have it? - Corinne Dursley - February 9, 2025

alt title: poe really likes adria arjona's play-by pics from good omens and maybe cares too much about accuracy for the transition of not needing glasses to mostly needing them for VE so that older!Cori can have glasses

I did try to do some research on this subject before popping over to ask for my fellow Charmer's thoughts/opinions on this subject matter! (And I have some thoughts/speculation too)

(Going to be as concise as I can, cause I went down a rabbit-hole that lead to an article about lawsuits over spectacles and the new medical field of vision in the late 19th century, and I don't want to bog down the thread too much.) From what I can tell, by the 1890s, the (muggle) world had quickly growing understanding on eyesight (they knew about color blindness, for one thing) and how it could worsen over time - spectacles were sold, opticians were a thing, and eye exams could be taken by people. People were starting to understand that things like a higher education and leisure reading were things that could negatively impact eyesight over time and I saw mentioned somewhere that there was compulsory vision testing for specific occupations as the 19th century was coming to an end...


I'm probably overthinking this, since I know there are play-bys with glasses on Charming, and it probably won't amount to much besides some minor character development later... but that is my brand at this point lol <3

RE: the eyes have it? - Elias Grimstone - February 10, 2025

When in doubt, I assume the muggle world and the VE are fairly on par in terms of development and expertise, though in ~differing ways.

I assume nearly anyone (of any class) could get some kind of glasses – if you're a rich UC man the fashionable, status-symbol option for this era is def the monocle!!! Less fashionable, less flattering & less comfortable, the pince-nez. Lorgnettes for the socialites who don't need to read academic tomes, just glance at the names on their dance card or their opera programme or as a fashion accessory. xD

My fun fact is the Brontes' father had a complicated cataract surgery way back in the 1840s and they were ~very poor middle class esque, in Charming terms, so the medical side of optometry was p advanced! (Charlotte & Branwell also wore glasses for myopia!)

There is also this uber long academic article that I skimmed but it sounds like it's def obtainable to get glasses and a vision test, but you maybe aren't going to get modern glasses with diff lenses for each eye etc. But largely very commercially available:
Quote:Historicising the selling and dispensing of spectacles, and those involved, is complex. Spectacles and the treatment of eye diseases had been a lucrative commercial market for centuries. Spectacles featured in the stocklists of a range of high street stores and in the pockets of a variety of street sellers. Simultaneously, their sale featured in the practice of an ‘oculist’, a term that could denote a fraudulent quack advertising ‘cures’ blindness and eye disease as well as an emerging specialist with medical training. By the 1890s the terms ‘ophthalmic surgeon’, ‘ophthalmologist’ and ‘oculist’ were used interchangeably in the discussions between medical practitioners and opticians to denote a specialism in the diseases of the eye. The newly titled ‘ophthalmic surgeon’ aligned the older term ‘oculist’ with the professional emergence of ophthalmology in the nineteenth century, thus helping to give it an air of authority and create a more respectable title.