ENGLISH GIRL’S NOBLE OFFER

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1650, 14 December 1916, Page 4

ENGLISH GIRL’S NOBLE OFFER

SACRIFICE OF AN EYE TO GIVE A SOLDIER SIGHT. Paris. A young English girl belonging to South Shields has made a noble offer of self-saerifiee. She has expressed her willingness to he deprived of one of her eyes if by so doing she can restore sight to a. soldier. Recently Dr. Rochen Duvigneaud, the eminent oculist, who is chief of the Ophthalmological Clinic Hospital at Daennee, expressed the opinion that it might, he possible to graft a small fragment of the human cornea to another human cornea, and so restore sight to a blind person. Learning of the possibility foreshadowed by the doctor’s words, the brave girl wrote the following letter; “Do yon believe it is possible to take the eye, of one person and graft is on that of another? Do you believe it is possible to enable two persons to see with only two eyes between them instead of four? If you believe that there is one chance of success even in a million, 1 am at your disposal. I will give you one of my eyes if you know of a soldier who has lost his sight while serving in France, and to whom sight would he of great utility in the service of his country. I would prefer to give my eye to one to whom it would he especially useful —savant, inventor, or oflieer of groat value. If one of these men wishes to try the experiment, and you consider it possible. I shall be happy to give one of my eyes, and shall consider myself under au obligation to you, for you will have permitted me, to be useful to my country,.and it is the only means in my power of serving it.” The offer has not been accepted.