The data for this paper were collected during a two-year study of the elderly in the market town of Melton Mowbray. The randomly selected subjects, aged 76 years of age and older, were found to be on average +1.33 D hypermetropic and the average cylinder power was 0.82 D. The mean refractive error was found to be +1.5 D with 0.5 negative cylinder at between 85 and 90 degrees. Of all the subjects, 30 per cent had significant anisometropia.