Echoes of the past: Similarities revealed between 1939 optical profession and now

A glimpse back into the archive and the issue of July 14 1939 again reveals parallels with the optical profession of today.

Just earlier in the month in 1939, famed baseball slugger Lou Gehrig, who had played 2,130 games over 14 years, gave his last public speech, following a then diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He died 23 months later aged 37 from the disease that came to bear his name in the US.

In the Optician of the day, one short letter in a lively Letters to the Editor page stands out in which the author writes: ‘While on the subject of the chief stumbling block to unity, viz, the SMC, we have a couple of their Fellows displaying and advertising Spectacles Complete With Lenses at and from 5s, including Sight-testing’.