SIGHT BY SURGERY.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 587, 16 August 1909, Page 4

SIGHT BY SURGERY.

REPLACING'THE LENS OF THE EYE BY, ... '•/. '• GLASS. .;■ '.- ; How'the skill of a'London'surgeon has brought' back sight to a' man who had been blind for more than a year was recently told to a representative of tho, "Daily Mail" by Mr. 8.-Cahl, recently treated at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital. ; ' The injury which caused, total blindness in both eyea was tho result of an explosion in a gold mine at Johannesburg in March, 1908. "After tho explosion," Mr. Cahl stated, "I out in tie- darkness for somo of tho boys to. bring .a, candle.\ When one, of them finally "insisted he was' holding a lighted candle before my face I.knew I was blind. I was'in hospital in Johannesburg- under several doctors'for the nest three months, and then in July came to London, and was treated at the London Ophthalmic Hospital. ''Becoming impatient : I went to Vienna, where I consulted two different eye specialists. Both told mo there was absolutely no hope of my ever regaining my sight,"; and advised me to enter a home for the Wind. I returned to London Ophthalmic Hospital, and in February of, this year an operation was performed on my left eye (the right having been totally destroyed), and now, by means of glasses, 1 can see fairly well and even, read fine print."- . ; ■.■ i . The following description of the wonderful operation has been given by one of the surgeons of the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital:— ..■'■'•-.'•■■■■■ '■ "When the patient first came to the hospital the .right pye was .totally destroyed, while the left ono was intensely inflamed, ' «ud the cornea, or projecting front part, was. dotted with fragments of quartz blown into it at the time of the' explosion. The capsule of the lens had been torn by other'jagged particles of rock, and tho whole lons had been absorbed.' Only the capsulo remained to separate tho fluid in the ball of tho oye from tho We, or coloured screen; which surrounds the pupil. "The first treatment consisted of picking out the quartz particles, some of which wero embedded even in the muscles which rotate the eye. Then'the irritation was reduced by lotions. Tho greater part of the cornea was opaque, on account of old scar tissue, tho result of the early inflammation, but a fairly transparent part was selected, and a portion of the iris, or soreen behind this, was .then cut away, so as to let tho light fall on' thesensitive retina, or lining of the back part of the eye. "As the man's natural lens within tho eye had already been destroyed, ho now lias to wear a glass lens before, the .eye to make the entering rays of light focus correctly on his retina. His'range of vision is limited, but ho can read the finest typo easily, anil inf stead'of ondinc his days in an institute for the blind, lio snould be ablo to earn his own j living, at soino' , employment 'which dqco not I make too jyoat a demand on the eyesight."