Near sighted vs. far sighted would make a difference on what you could do. Near sighted people can read, write, do needlework, beading, and other types of indoor work just fine. Watching out for wolves sneaking up on the sheep, not so much. As noted here as well, many people probably didn't live long enough to get cataracts.
That’s a misconception. The ones that survived the first 20-25 years of their lives could live as old as today. The first King of Portugal lived until his late seventies in the 12th century. Many historical figures had long lifes.
@@dplouro True, some people did have comparatively long lives. But I'm sure that kings and the more prominent people we know about had much better nutrition, protections and easier lives than your everyday person.
@@rhondahulett9763it was because of the high rate of infant and childhood deaths. Even a peasant, if they made it to adulthood, had a good chance of seeing sixty.
There's a lot of these "history, documentary" type of channels now that are made with AI. Just the other day I saw one that's supposed to talk about uncommon/less known events in history and the topic was: "Samurai" LOL And it's the same thing, someone talking over a bunch of random pictures/clips and not really showing anything.
As a child, for what I suppose was a long time we didn't know that I couldn't see far away. It was soo amazing when I got my first pair of glasses, I felt I could count the leaves on the trees! 😁
I remember driving home as a child with my new glasses being astounded how distinct the streetlamps and store signs were! Now I have cataracts and am slowly going backward.
It's hard to take this seriously when the images he or she chose to illustrate the polishing of the crystal magnifying stones had absolutely no relation to the words or subject
I agree. This is an interesting topic, though most of the images and narration were not relevant. In summary, reading stones, early glasses and family/neighbors were used to cope with poor eyesight. No mention that most people of this time period were illiterate. No mention that people often use other sensory cues to navigate their surroundings.
It's almost certainly put together by AI. A waste of time. Listen to it once more and notice how at least 50% is just random gibberish. And think for a moment. Did the video answer the question in the thumbnail?
There's a lot of these "history, documentary" type of channels now that are made with AI. Just the other day I saw one that's supposed to talk about uncommon/less known events in history and the topic was: "Samurai" LOL And it's the same thing, someone talking over a bunch of random pictures/clips and not really showing anything.
Have you tried looking through a pin hole made in a piece of paper, plastic or tin foil and held close to the naked eye ? Works better the brighter the light. ( in the 'dark ages' a hole could be made in thin metal, leather, wood, cloth or even a leaf)
It's awful because from the beginning your eyes and your brain were trained to optics. I'm short-sighted and I always felt lost without glasses. But I couldn't wear them under a fencing mask. So I didn't and learned how to get used to it. Perception changes towards movements and colours. I wouldn't drive a car (but I ride bicyles) and I have to get pretty close to the screen, but it's not that big a deal.
@@charlynegezze8536 Good point ! same as things like fairies etc. Dragon flies, knats and other insects could be seen as them. ( poor eyesight and eating halucigenic mushrooms !
Sunlight is important for proper eye growth. Lack of sunlight results in eyes becoming elongated. I suspect a lot of vision problems are a modern problem
I've long wondered why poor eyes are so common it's a major evolutionary factor. Someone made a similar case about straight teeth claiming that lack of hard chewing foods was the reason and showing endless old skulls with near perfect teeth.
@heronimousbrapson863 The problem referred to is not "healthy teeth" but weak jaw development leading to dental crowding necessitating extractions and/or braces. Poor jaw development can also result in breathing problems. Stop being a sissy and give your baby a steak to gnaw on. My own dental issues at age 65 result from too little meat and overenthusiastic dental nurses gutting my teeth at primary (grade) school because it was considered best practice in the day to replace teeth with silver amalgam. My wife has similar issues but spends more on dental repairs where I have largely given up (following my favoured dentist moving town). Our adult son has only ever had one filling, and that was done badly, just this year, and the repair needed repairing. He was given fluoride topically when young (a totally different process from fluoridating water which has no beneficial effects) and my dentist put resin in his hollows of his teeth when young to avoid accumulation of food. His diet has varied from omnivore to vegan to vegetarian so beyond the meat consumption he has eaten a varied diet, although admittedly we were not habitual drinkers of soda pop. Most work carried out by dentists and doctors is either not necessary at all or done to fix damage done by other "professionals" in the past.
You may be right. I did laser eye surgery several years ago but during the first 2 years of C-19 lockdown I spent a lot of time in doors and worked mainly night shift, resulting in my return to wearing glasses with the onset of myopia.
Better eyesight to differentiate between the plants that you're going to eat. Better eyesight to study the animals that you're responsible for, to make sure that they're in good condition. Better eyesight to pick the fleas and bugs out of your porridge. That's the answer to why why why why why, if you don't need it if you don't need to why why why why why if you don't need to why why if you don't need to why, and that's the answer. You still need to be able to pick the flies out of your porridge.
As someone with very bad eyesight I have often wondered how people with my eyesight would have lived Today many Native Americans have very poor eyesight…how would they function? My theory is that bad eyesight is more common today because of more people that have bad eyesight having kids with other bad eyesight people…maybe wouldn’t happen so much back then
Bad eyesight might be due to bad nutrition. Many Native Americans, especially the Great Plains people, had a diet high in animal fats and proteins. High carbohydrate foods were mostly available only during the autumn harvest season. There was research done on cats for multiple generations. Cats are obligated carnivores. The cats were fed a different diet. Each generation got worse and worse health.
I'm far sighted. I learned this trick to see without glasses. You cup your hand into a tube and look through it. The explanation is that scattered light is what makes things blurry. It really works, but it's a tunnel vision view.
This can work with short sightedness too. Also, a pin sized hole in a piece of paper, plastic or tin foil held close to the eyes works. It's better in bright daylight. A bigger hole can be made to let light in for low light levels but vision becomes more blurry the bigger the hole. It's worth knowing in case of emergency.
@@adrianparker-e9f Thank you for that life-hack. Now that I'm older, I've become near-sighted too: "presbyopia". Most of the time I carry two pairs of glasses depending upon what activity I'm doing.
@@jasonharrison25 Even though i've needed to wear my glasses all the time since about ten, it was only recently that i discovered the 'finger' method ! And i was in my thirties before i accidentally came across looking through a pinhole. Losing or damaging my glasses had always been a worry to me so it was reassuring to find out that i could do SOMETHING to help my situation. Why have i not come across this advice before ?
@@adrianparker-e9f I found out as a child when I was watching a movie and one of my friends was always holding his hand up to his eye. I asked him why he kept doing that and he explained it made it sharp enough for him to see the picture clearly. He used the the tube method looking through his hand. So I started testing it and trying different methods and discovered just looking through a narrow gap helped. I don't have bad eyesight so the benefits may not be as great as what my friend saw. When I started learning about photography I learned about how a smaller aperture extends the range of focus but if the aperture is too small then diffraction takes over and the picture becomes more blurry again
I am extremely short sighted and wear glasses all the time, except when reading. As I can focus on extremely small objects or writing, people ask me for help with them.
Make a pin hole in a piece of paper, tin foil or plastic and then hold it close to your eye. The vision will be good enough to see with, but the brighter the light the better. I didn't find this out until my thirties and have been wearing glasses full time since the age of nine.
Sunlight I important for proper eye development. Lack of sunlight causes eyes to be one grape-like in shape and this causes vision problems. I suspect a lot of vision problems are a modern problem.
Vitamin A is more essential for eye development and during the middle ages the diet of poor people often had a lack of vegetables, therefore poor eyesight was quite common. But even today people rarely a blind as a mole without their glasses. If your vision is only slightly blurry it wouldn't make so much difference against people with good eyesight. When only few people could read and write, cause they never learned this skill, it didn't matter much if written text looked blurry. There was no fast traffic where good eyesight is important to avoid accidents. So most of the problmes that came with an only partial bad eyesight weren't so important as today, as we want to see every detail on smartphones and other computer or TV screens.
@@red.aries1444 I'm going to agree with the central point of your comment. That is most people's vision isn't and wasn't perfect at any time in history. I will also agree that perfect vision is more important in today's society so we hold it to a higher standard. I am going to question one thing: "poor people often had a lack of vegetables" Foraging and farming was very common among the poor. I enjoy learning about historical cooking through recipe books and shows (with a main focus of 100-300 years ago), and they all use vegetables heavily especially those aimed at the poor. If you could specify what you envision by "poor" or what time frame you are envisioning maybe that'd clear up my confusion. Secondly I would recommend googling "modern vegetables less vitamins" this should start you down an interesting rabbit hole about how modern vegetables are less nutrient dense than they were ~100 years ago.
Unless a male was totally blind, l bet his poor eyesight wouldn’t get him out of military campaigns. It would be a definite disadvantage in combat, hunting and other activities where good eyesight was required.
Looking at medieval Europe, only a tiny segment of the population would need to read and that was true for all the people of the world. What were the causes of poor vision all over the world back then, when talking about the vast majority of the commoners? Number one cause of poor vision was vitamin deficiencies, due to grain heavy diets. Number two cause: parasitic diseases, mostly fly or mosquito related. Number three cause: accidents, from wood splinters to anvil spatter, to rock fragments, dust and smoke. Number four cause: poor lighting, most work was done outside but, come night or Winter and work had to move inside, things like weaving and spinning, tanning hides and making things out of wood. What could a person do about it? That's one use for children, all over the world. Children became the guides, became the "Seeing eye" for the blind and did much of the finish work on manufactured things or crude starting work on other things. Children gathered wood wild food, (ever wonder where the tradition of the Easter Egg Hunt came from? Children were sent out to gather the first eggs of wild birds, eggs of different sizes and colors. Wild birds will often lay a second batch of eggs, if the nest is raided, early in the season.) Children were also the herders and fishermen. So, dating back to the Hunter-Gatherer days, the most used poor vision aid was a child.
My farsighted vision corrected when I went on the lion diet. The inflammation in your body goes away and somehow that’s related to foresightedness.. some kind of inflammation in the eye that screws up your vision when you’re older
I guess I'd have been a storyteller in the past. It seems I wouldn't have gotten very far with the gene for shortsightedness running in the family. Talk about the blind leading the blind!. I think when you have vision problems like myopia it's good to take your glasses off and wander around without them on for periods of time...never be absolutely reliant on glasses...sometimes just seeing blurs helps and trains your brain to recognise these shapes and gives you the confidence to move around. Glasses are amazing but with them I think we've lost the ability to trust our other senses to compensate for our lack of vision and we lose ironically a unique perspective or vision of the world around us...
Having poor eyesight is a scary thing. Whether you are illiterate or whatever, it’s still scary. Also is still needed for every job out there! Cobblers, blacksmiths , tailors, milliners, etc.
Here's an interesting thing how it's done today in a way you probably never thought of. BOXING. Contact lenses WILL fly out of your eyes VERY quickly and cause you problems, so lots of boxers just deal with the blurry vision in the ring. I can't speak for everyone, but I wear contacts and my vision is blurry without them. But honestly I can make out the exact same things without my contacts as with. Just blurrier.
Martial artists react to movements. Vision of movements works blurry as well. It may even be advantageous because the fighter is not distracted by details he cannot see.
Talking about quartz crystal and glass “Reading stones” and lenses but showing diamonds being placed into a hand filed gold mount. How is that relevant ? Or is it just really sloppy production ?
I can see clearly looking through a pin hole in some paper, plastic, tin foil etc. I don't know when this was discovered, but the camera obscura idea ( tuning a whole room into a pin hole camera ) is quite old. Some think the Turin Shroud might be connected to pin hole photography as are some other old works of art.)
it can get pretty rough having bad eyesight now, but back in the middle ages? imagine not being able to easily tell a horse and an unicorn apart, or not being sure if the thing flying is a dragon or not, and let's not even get to looking for fairies. glasses couldn't be invented soon enough, I tell you
There are several forms of eyesight loss. Not everyone is shortsighted. Long-sightedness would not have caused as much of a problem, so such a person could still have done farming, for example because they would just lack close up vision. Short sightedness is actually a genetic trait found more in European countries than Asiatic ones, where long-sightedness is more common. Interestingly modern inventions like computer screens have also affected the prevalence of eyesight issues.
There were many blind harpists in Ireland - Turlough O' Carolan probably being the most well known who like others composed original music., some of which was preserved in the 18th century.
For people who cannot see close up and need reading glasses, direct sunlight can overcome it. In direct sunlight your eyes contract, meaning you are using a smaller part of the lens in your eyes. This means the optical abnormality causing vision impairment doesn't come into play as much for people who need reading glasses. Try it sometime. I do, I did, and it works.
I have poor eyesight, but I could function just fine without glasses if I had to. I would squint to read, but wouldn't have too many other problems. The only things I couldn't do are drive or fly a plane or perform surgery. But those things didn't exist back then.
I have bad eyesight and have had glasses since I was 5 when my teachers realized it. I have wondered what my life would have been in a different century - especially since I enjoy creating things visually.
The average lifespans are particularly low because of the high mortality rates for children. If you made it into your teenage years, you had a good chance of making it to 40 and beyond.
I have myopia (severe nearsightedness) and I don't think I'd be able to function in the Middle Ages. I would not be able to do many tasks like cooking as my vision is so poor I can only clearly see items only about 5 inches from my face. Everything else is a blur. If I were to try and cross a street without my glasses I would be taking my life in my hands as I would not be able to see oncoming traffic. So I would be considered blind and would have to have assistance with everyday tasks.
People in those days probably just accepted their disability, became used to it and got on with life. Losing one of the senses is not necessarily a disaster although I would not like to lose my sense of touch, or my sense of balance.
This is the second such video that ignores the fact that nearsighted people can do intricate work like making jewelry, carvings and sewing WITHOUT the need for magnification. They might even be the ones who made the reading stones! I am sure that those were much more useful occupations than being a shepherd who can't spot a wolf approaching.
You seem to talk about farsightedness at times and nearsightedness at other times, confusing the 2. Farsightedness was probably more unusual people not living to be very old. On the other hand, nearsightedness perhaps leaded to more accidents?
That’s based upon misconceptions of average life expectancy. Most of the increase in average life expectancy has been the reduction of childhood mortality. Until near the end of the 19th century having half your kids reach adulthood was good fortune. Even the very wealthy would lose at least one. Anyhow, if a responsible person of good character made it to adulthood it was not rare to live to 60s or 70s, some even into 80s.
I have wondered with their apparent prevalence of poor eyesight, because so many of them today wear eyeglasses, how the Chinese managed to organize effective armies :-)
Showing visuals, unrelated to the content, is distracting and reduces the quality of the work. Examples include showing gemstones instead of reading stones, talking about crafting reading stones and showing somebody filing metal, showing Santa Claus with glasses, and talking about laser eye surgery, but showing some sort of skin defect removal with a laser instead are examples.
Some of the information was broad, but others were more insightful . The images don’t really match the dialogue. Reading scones were not polished like diamond rings for instance
The title of this video asks a question.... the answer is they coped with bad eye sight by dying. There was no social welfare from the tyrants back then.
I love history! I was looking so forward to watching this video that RU-vid suggested for me to watch. The first thing I learned about was using a clear stone to magnify words. And how early man was so good cutting and polish them. Unfortunately suddenly on the screen appeared modern multifaceted stones! Why? Those have nothing to do with magnifying anything! When you're telling a story stick to the freaking script! As much as I hated to do it but I stopped the video and started to make this comment. I'll find a more reliable source to finish reading about this interesting subject.
That argument may work for farsightedness, but for nearsightedness, as in everything across the room is a blur, not so much. How many sheep are in the field? Can't tell.
I would be a Monk locked in a monastery for life or a beggar with a cane wandering constantinople's streets because men of my era thought that was better to create the "greek fire" than glasses!
I think vision issues are, in part, created by us. Eye focus muscles needs stretched, or they get tight. i quit wearing my glasses ~15 years ago & started stretching my focus. I haven't "needed" any glasses since my last visit 11 years ago. back then people didn't have a crutch, now people abuse it. They also didn't have safety glasses.
When a VIDEO does not have images that match the story I move on. If you can’t be bothered to find images or create graphics that are true to the topic then why should I believe that what you are saying is based upon actual research? If lazy in finding images then narration is probably peppered with unsupported assumptions too.
