RE: [lace] Lace legends?

[J-D Hammett]

Hi Lyn,

Cataracts can even occur in babies and small children (not frequently, thank
God), not just later in life.

Happy lace making,

Joepie.

From: lynrbai...@supernet.com


Dear Elise,
What you say makes sense.  I have often wondered, and I was voting for
cataracts, but then I realized that happens quite late in life.  I am truly
impressed by the expertise that various members of Arachne bring to the
discussion.  In our own way, we are a powerhouse of passion for lace,
intellectual questers, and a variety of expertise.  Yay us!


"My email sends out an automatic  message. Arachne members,
please ignore it. I read your emails."



>I agree Devon, the theory of blindness from making lace has never made sense
>to me.  However, I disagree that syphilis was the usual culprit ...

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Re: [lace] Lace legends?

[lynrbailey]

Dear Elise,
What you say makes sense.  I have often wondered, and I was voting for 
cataracts, but then I realized that happens quite late in life.  I am truly 
impressed by the expertise that various members of Arachne bring to the 
discussion.  In our own way, we are a powerhouse of passion for lace, 
intellectual questers, and a variety of expertise.  Yay us! 


"My email sends out an automatic  message. Arachne members,
please ignore it. I read your emails."



>I agree Devon, the theory of blindness from making lace has never made sense
>to me.  However, I disagree that syphilis was the usual culprit ...
>My pet theory is Clamydia trachomatis. This is still the leading infectious
>cause of blindness today in 3rd world countries. It’s epidemiology makes it
>a likely candidate in my opinion. Even today, it affects significantly more
>women than men. Blindness, when it progresses to that point, usually occurs
>during adulthood, striking women today in their late 20s to early 40s. By this
>age, most lacemakers would have been making lace for a good many years, thus,
>it may have appeared that it was the lacemaking that caused the blindness.
>Then as now, it was endemic in poor areas with poor sanitation. It’s natural
>reservoir is young children, and the adults affected are virtually always the
>caretakers of young children— hence, the overwhelming majority of those
>affected are women. It is far more prevalent  in households with multiple
>children, lack of water, poor personnel hygiene, open fires for cooking, and
>group sleeping. The part I found the most compelling as far as the lacemaking
>legend, is that the early infections in children present as a typical
>conjunctivitis— highly contagious, lots of eye discharge, and a pretty
>noticeable infection. In adults, however, the scarring that leads to cornea
>opacities and blindness occurs after repeated infections earlier in life. By
>adulthood, they no longer get the typical conjunctivitis with the active
>discharge due to changes in their immune response. Their infections at that
>point are latent and often no longer result in what we would consider to be a
>“normal” looking conjunctivitis. So to observers with no knowledge of the
>disease progression or even germ theory, it would appear that adult women who
>took care of children, lived in poor conditions and had poor sanitation and
>hygiene, and made fine lace, tended to go blind after a couple of decades of
>fine lacework. By recognizing that lace took sharp eyesight, they made the
>assumption that the lacemaking caused the blindness. When in actuality, lace
>and good eyesight were just confounding factors and the true culprit wasn’t
>recognized because the really noticeable infections had taken place years
>before.
>Blindness due to C. trachomatis faded away in Europe long before antibiotics
>were available to treat it because sanitation became better, access to clean
>water was more readily available, and most importantly, knowledge of using
>cleanliness to avoid disease became more widespread.
>
>I love it when my worlds collide!
>
>Elise— microbiologist in Maine
>
>

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Re: [lace] Lace legends?

[N.A. Neff]

Hi Devon,

Well, this may be hubris on my part, but I partially disagree with your
ophthalmologist. He says "You cannot damage your eyes by using your eyes."
Actually, one gradually looses one's ability to focus at distance if one
primarily uses one's eyes for close work. In modern times this has been
largely caused by excessive reading as children and not using our far
vision enough. (In adults who drive, even those of us who read obsessively,
the problem tends not to get worse, but the damage is done by that time.)

This makes sense because focusing is accomplished by muscles behind the
iris pulling on the lens and changing its shape to adjust where the light
rays converge inside the eye. The convergence needs to be exactly on the
retina for sharp focus, so the lens needs to be more rounded to focus on
near objects. This requires the muscles attached to the lens to relax. And
focusing at a distance requires the lens to be flatter, accomplished by the
muscles pulling on the lens and stretching it out slightly. So if one
seldom focuses on distant objects, the muscles atrophy and the ability to
focus on distant objects is lost. Use it or lose it.

Perhaps losing near vision from age and far vision from only focusing close
up was what was meant by "going blind". I can tell you from experience
that, without glasses, one is effectively blind in that condition-- perhaps
one could call it the "Mr. Magoo effect", for those of us of a certain age.

Therefore it is important to look up occasionally while reading, or making
lace or other near work, and look off into the distance, to keep those
muscles active.

So I partially disagree with your ophthalmologist: you can damage your eyes
if you use them in an imbalanced manner.

Nancy,
nit-picking in Connecticut, USA  :-)

On Sat, Sep 1, 2018 at 7:58 AM, Devon Thein  wrote:

> The theory that you lose your eyesight from making lace is a
> persistent one. I once consulted my ophthalmologist about this,
> fearing for my own eyesight, and he said, "You cannot damage your eyes
> by using your eyes."  ...

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Re: [lace] Lace legends?

[Elise Waber Hays]

I agree Devon, the theory of blindness from making lace has never made sense
to me.  However, I disagree that syphilis was the usual culprit since the
stages of primary, secondary, and tertiary syphilis were well known and
recognized. Had these women been blinded by syphilis, I don’t think the
legend of being blinded by the lace work itself would ever have been started.
My pet theory is Clamydia trachomatis. This is still the leading infectious
cause of blindness today in 3rd world countries. It’s epidemiology makes it
a likely candidate in my opinion. Even today, it affects significantly more
women than men. Blindness, when it progresses to that point, usually occurs
during adulthood, striking women today in their late 20s to early 40s. By this
age, most lacemakers would have been making lace for a good many years, thus,
it may have appeared that it was the lacemaking that caused the blindness.
Then as now, it was endemic in poor areas with poor sanitation. It’s natural
reservoir is young children, and the adults affected are virtually always the
caretakers of young children— hence, the overwhelming majority of those
affected are women. It is far more prevalent  in households with multiple
children, lack of water, poor personnel hygiene, open fires for cooking, and
group sleeping. The part I found the most compelling as far as the lacemaking
legend, is that the early infections in children present as a typical
conjunctivitis— highly contagious, lots of eye discharge, and a pretty
noticeable infection. In adults, however, the scarring that leads to cornea
opacities and blindness occurs after repeated infections earlier in life. By
adulthood, they no longer get the typical conjunctivitis with the active
discharge due to changes in their immune response. Their infections at that
point are latent and often no longer result in what we would consider to be a
“normal” looking conjunctivitis. So to observers with no knowledge of the
disease progression or even germ theory, it would appear that adult women who
took care of children, lived in poor conditions and had poor sanitation and
hygiene, and made fine lace, tended to go blind after a couple of decades of
fine lacework. By recognizing that lace took sharp eyesight, they made the
assumption that the lacemaking caused the blindness. When in actuality, lace
and good eyesight were just confounding factors and the true culprit wasn’t
recognized because the really noticeable infections had taken place years
before.
Blindness due to C. trachomatis faded away in Europe long before antibiotics
were available to treat it because sanitation became better, access to clean
water was more readily available, and most importantly, knowledge of using
cleanliness to avoid disease became more widespread.

I love it when my worlds collide!

Elise— microbiologist in Maine

Sent from my iPad

> On Sep 1, 2018, at 7:58 AM, Devon Thein  wrote:

>   One theory about blindness among lacemakers is
> that, living in port towns as most lacemaking towns tend to be,
> lacemakers may have been contracting syphilis.

> To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line:
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> arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site:
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Re: [lace] Lace legends?

[Devon Thein]

The theory that you lose your eyesight from making lace is a
persistent one. I once consulted my ophthalmologist about this,
fearing for my own eyesight, and he said, "You cannot damage your eyes
by using your eyes."  One theory about blindness among lacemakers is
that, living in port towns as most lacemaking towns tend to be,
lacemakers may have been contracting syphilis.Of course, as Sally
points out, there were a lot of health and hygiene issues that could
play into this.  Another theory that I have heard about is that the
lacemakers didn't really go blind, they just lost their ability to
focus closely on lace. According to my same ophthalmologist you start
losing your ability to focus at close range when you are 39 1/2 years
old. So, if you couldn't focus at close range that might render you
blind for purposes of lacemaking.
Regarding the story about the fictional account of the French village,
where people go blind, if you remember the name of the book let me
know. However, it sounds like
Villedieu-les-Poeles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villedieu-les-Po%C3%AAles  Somewhere in
my extensive reading I ran across the remark that they made lace with
human hair in Villedieu-les-Poeles. So, I made this a stop on one of
my research trips to France in an effort to identify the lace fan made
in human hair in Chantilly technique that is in the Met. There is a
small museum there in a courtyard where I was graciously received by
the museum director and some lace volunteers. The courtyard was
formerly known as the courtyard of the deaf and the blind. The reason
for this is that the men of Villedieu-les-Poeles worked making copper
pots and pans in this courtyard and went deaf, while their wives made
lace and went blind. In the courtyard museum  there is a section about
the copper work and, also, a not unimpressive lace display. The copper
technology was brought to the area by Knights Templar, and if I
understood this correctly, there is no local source for copper, no one
knows where the copper came from, but they supplied pots and pans to
the whole of Europe.
I had brought a photo of the lace fan with me, but unfortunately,
there was no hair lace at the museum. They knew about it from
historical writings, and one of the ladies who volunteers at the
museum had seen an example from a private collection that was in a
display about 25 years before. But she really couldn't remember what
it looked like. I am growing hazy on the details of this trip, which I
meant to write up for the Bulletin, but somewhere along the way, I
think that I found confirmation that the hair lace of Villedieu was
made in Chantilly technique, so I am thinking that Villedieu was most
likely the source for our piece, since hair lace is rare and hair lace
in Chantilly technique even rarer. Here is a link to the fan
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/210096?searchField=AllsortBy=relevancewhat=Bobbin+lace%7cHairft=lace+fanoffset=0rpp=20pos=1
Devon

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re: [lace] Lace legends?

[Sally Jenkins]

Because I get the digest form I can't respond directly, so must copy and
paste. Liz R wondered about a village in France where the old lacemakers
had all lost their eyesight - fact or fiction?. I'm just now re-reading
"Take the Children," and loss of eyesight due to poor light and general
poor working conditions is certainly a main point of that book. Nowhere
have I seen, though I have often wondered, how much of the lost eyesight -
English children or French elders - was due to malnutrition and lack of
sunlight, fresh produce, vitamins, fresh air, and general health and
hygiene. In addition to poor light and working on black lace, of course.
I realize I haven't addressed Liz's question about the particular French
village - it would be interesting to hear if someone else can address that
too.
Sally in western Oregon, USA

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[lace] Lace legends?

[Lbuyred]

Speaking of possible lace legends, I have long been curious about a fictional 
account of a lace village in France where most of the older lace makers had 
lost their sight.  This was supposedly due to making lace for long hours in 
poor light.  However I have never seen anything about this in any non-fiction 
accounts.  Is this just a legend?
Liz R, Raleigh, NC USA

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