Object Literature
The correction of vision became more important during the 19th century for many reasons: the rise of ophthalmology, changing environments, and fascination with the eye and vision in British culture. This greater awareness and adoption of vision testing in the 19th century led to a corresponding concern of how vision errors could be optimally corrected. Remarkably, spectacles were not always favoured by the medical profession, and patients with eye defects might be subjected to bloodletting by leeches, or purging instead.
During the time this mirror was in use there was an evolution of shopkeeper opticians who sold scientific instruments for an examining nature to becoming professional scientific measurers of refractive error, or ophthalmic opticians. By the late-nineteenth century British opticians had formed into several organisations to promote their own views as to how the business of opticians should be protected. Eventually, in 1895, after much discussion the profession of optometry was finally born when a group of like-minded opticians formed the British Optical Association.
A rare mirror and a beautiful one at that.