MAKING THE BLIND SEE.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 October 1921, Page 6

MAKING THE BLIND SEE.

VIENNA DOCTOR’S CLAIM.

Can sight be restored by the process of transplanting a normal eye in place of a blind one? Viennese medical circles (says a correspondent of the Daily Chronicle) are at present discussing this question, as the result of a lecture delivered at Vienna, at which the claim was made that the experiments carried out have proved that sight can be restored. Professor Kolmer, of the Physiological Institute, who has supervised these experiments, has explained to me what has been accomplished and what is claimed. It lias long been known that fish, frogs and other forms of aquatic life have power to change their color in conformity with their surroundings, but they lose this -power on becoming blind. Experiments were conducted on the lines of observing what happened when a normal eye was transplanted in place of a blind one, and it was founti. that fish, frogs, etc., recovered the power of adapting themselves to their surroundings, reaction being somewhat slower than in the case of fish with their original eyes. To test whether ! this recovery of the power of adaptability was due to recovered sight, and whether sight itself had really been recovered, the fish were put into a tank and a ray of . light passed through the water. Fish and other forms of life on which the experiment were tried reacted to the light in a manner similar to those animals which have normal original sight, avoiding strong light and ■ moving towards the ray of light coming through the darkness. If was also discovered that fish, etc., with a transplanted eye recovered the function of eating, which they lose when blind. The eyes so transplanted have been mostly from one to another of a similar family, such as from -fish to fish, frog to frog, although in the lower forms of life some variations in the family of animals have been equally successful. Good results have also been obtained from experiments on rats, which is a very high form of life. The discovery was first made by Theodor Koppanyi, a young Hungarian student at the Vienna University, Professor Kolmer merely supervising and assisting.