SIGHT BY SURGERY.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 193, 14 August 1909, Page 15

SIGHT BY SURGERY.

REPLACING THE LENS OF THE EYE BY GLASS. The following description of a wonderful operation which restored the sight to the miner B. Cahl, who was totally blind for over a year, as the result of a mine explosion, has been given by one of the surgeons of the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital:— "When the patient first came to the hospital the right eye was totally destroyed, Whilo the left one was Intensely Inflamed, and 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, nnd the whole lens bad been absorbed. Ouly the capsule remained to separate the fluid In the ball of the eye from the iris, or cal- ' oured screen which surrounds the pupil.

"The first treatment consisted of picking out tlie quartz particles, some of which were embedded in the muscles which rotate the eye Then the irritation was reduced by lotions. The greater part of the cornea was opaque, on account of old scar tissue, the result of the early Inflammation, but a fairly transparent part was selected, and a portion of the Iris, or screen behind this, was then cut away, so as to let the light fall on the sensitive retina, or lining of the back part of the eye.

"As the man's nntural lens within the eye had already been destroyed, he now has to wear a glass lens before the eye to make the entering rays of light focus correctly on his retina. Ills range of vision Is limited, but he can read the finest type easily, and instead of ending his days In an institute for the blind, he should bo able to earn bis own living at some employment which docs not make too great a demand on the eyesight."