“Do not leave me. I live in despair. I live in darkness. My god Amon has left me. Bring me honey for my eyes and fat and genuine eye paint as soon as possible. Am I not your father? I wish to see with my eyes are deserting me.” (A letter written by the painter Poi to his son at the time of Ramses II (1504–1237 bc) translated in Thorwald J, Science and the Secrets of Medicine. New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1963:82)

In February a vaccine manufactured by Elan referred to as AN-1792 was in the early investigative stages when a clinical trial was abruptly terminated. This was because 15 patients developed significant brain inflammation while on the therapy. Nevertheless, investigators still appear to be enthusiastic that by stimulating antibodies to β amyloid protein, the damage of Alzheimer's disease can be slowed or perhaps even reversed. A β amyloid nasal vaccine developed by Cynthia Lemare, a neuropathologist at the Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, is set to go into clinical trials at the end of this year. (

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The National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, has just published a report titled Vision Problems in the United States. It suggests that the number of blind and visually impaired …