Fleming master vision screener (MAVIS)

Historical Significance: The instrument is described in Fletcher RJ. Ophthalmics in lndustry London, Hatton Press 1961; 64-69 and in Wigglesworth E and Cole BL Vision and its protection. AOA 1973 on page 130 in which manufacture is attributed to the British Amercian Optical Company (UK). The MAVIS (but not this particular instrument) was used in a study of vision screening conducted by Cole BL. Robbins HJ The Problems of Screening Children's Vision Aust. J. Optom. (1981); 64, (5): 193- I96 in which it is described as having a number of features which would seem to make it suitable for the screening of children's vision. It has provision for subjects with limited vocabulary, tests specifically for the detection of monocular vision and has a test for facultative hypermetropia. The attribution of its design to Robert Fletcher, Professor of Optometry at the City University, London,is likely but uncertain. Vision screening in industry to ensure work place safety and work efficiency emerged in the 1940s and gained impetus after World War 2 (1939 - 1945) through the perceived need to test the vision of servicemen. Vision screening instruments were devised in the 1940s and 1950s. ;Books on occupational optometry and ophthamology were written in the 1940s and 1950s (eg Hofstetter's Industrial Optometry 1956; Kuhn's Industrial Ophthalmology 1944, 1950 See Cat Nos 700, 1404). Coles and Garrard, the original owner of the instrument, was a large Melbourne optometry firm that offered vision screening and heat-toughened glasses to manufacturing industry from the 1950s and used this instrument for that purpose.