William Bates (physician)

William Horatio Bates (December 23, 1860 – July 10, 1931) was an American physician who practiced ophthalmology and developed what became known as the Bates Method for better eyesight, an educational method intended to improve vision by undoing a supposed habitual strain to see. The efficacy of the method is questionable, and his theory that the eye does not focus by changing the power of the lens, but rather by elongating the eyeball, through use of the extraocular oblique muscles, was contradicted by mainstream ophthalmology and optometry of his day and still is today.

Biography

Bates graduated A.B. from Cornell University in 1881 and received his medical degree at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1885. He formulated a theory about vision health, and published the book Perfect Sight Without Glasses in 1920, and the magazine Better Eyesight from 1919 to 1930. Parts of Bates' approach to correcting vision disorders were based on psychological principles, which were contrary to many of the medical theories of the time and remain so. The Bates Method still enjoys some limited acceptance as a modality of alternative medicine.