Excerpt from The Making of a Mechanical Optician: A Treatise on the Equipment and Mechanical Work of Optometrists and Opticians In beginning this treatise we have in mind partially the optician who is considering the advisability of installing a plant to do his own work, and, naturally, the first question to decide is whether it is advisable to install such a plant. The arguments in favor of doing so are the following: The accommodation to your customer, the new customers it will bring by advertising that you do your own work and the extra profit. The arguments against it are: The extra responsibility and labor it will put upon you; have you enough prescription work to make it an object, and if so, can, you afford to hire a man, and would it not be advisable to use the time time that you would put into this work to develop your refracting business? This matter you can best decide for yourself, but, assuming that you decide to take the step, the next thing is to lay the plans for your shop and select the machinery. It was formerly the custom to engage an attic room in some old building on a side street, order a grindstone and. engage car, penters and machinists to fit it up. As it was impossible to estimate the expense, it frequently was exorbitant. Now that has all changed, as it is possible to purchase an entire outfit, ready to run, at a nominal cost. This not only saves a great deal of worry, but you can figure the cost almost to a cent. Another great advantage is that the outfit, sold by the wholesalers to-day, can be used in any office, even with a rug on the floor, and can be kept as clean as a piece of furniture. The best place for a bench depends somewhat on the circumstances. Some prefer to have an extra room for this work; others fit up part of the refracting room or the reception room. If you have an office, consisting of only one room, you can perhaps select a corner near a window, and, if you prefer, you can stand a screen in front of it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.