BLIND FROM BIRTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 106, 7 May 1931, Page 23

BLIND FROM BIRTH.

YOUNG MAN CAN SEE. FASCINATED BY COLOURS. ASTONISHING SURGICAL FEAT. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, April 9. Eyes which never saw brought new sensations and revelations beyond expression to Earl Musselman, 22, whose vision has been made by the skill of a surgeon' 6 knife in Philadelphia. He was born blind, and learned to know people and objects by sound and touch, but now he can see. Musselman was born without pupils in his eyes. Six weeks ago Dr. G. H. Moore, a specialist on the staff of the Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia, performed an operation and a few days ago the bandages were removed. Musselman beheld a new world, a world of colour sensations in which years of stored up imagination became real, and many impressions were found to be wrong. "I was completely fooled," he said. "I thought I knew 'what it was all about, 5 as the saying goes, but I was wrong. Besides all the things which I had wrong impressions of, there are so many things of which I had no impression at all. The way bricks are set in a building; the way one colour is different from another, and one shade blends into another, the way tramcar tracks run straight beside each other, and the way they shine, the way a hore> and the motor vehicle move—it's all wonderful. Imagination can in no way convey an idea of colour, of the vivid beauty of flowers. I had tried to fix colours in my mind from descriptions by teachers and friends who could see, but my conception of them was drab and dull compared with the wonderful colours I can see now." Now Learning to Read. Musselman is not able to associate the various colour sensations with names. That is one of the things he will have to learn. "I'm trying to read with my eyes already," he said. "Of course, I can't read ordinary type, but the doctors say I'll be able to soon. The alphabet is simple, and when my sight is a little better reading will be no. trick at all." He has been able to read with his fingers for years, and. physicians expressed the belief that he will learn as muoh in three months about reading and writing as a child starting to school would learn in six years. When Musselman looked at himself in a mirror he jokingly remarked that he "looked something like he thought a monkey looked." But he admitted that everybody, including himself, was better looking than his "mind picture" of them. Though an ordinary room contains more wonders for him than Yellowstone Park has for those who had their sight, that national park is one of the things in particular Musselman wants to see. He said he would like to be a travelling salesman, so that he would see "lote of the country." The Surgeon Explains. The removal of a mass of substance behind the cornea of his left eye ■brought sight to Earl Musselman, Dr. Moore explained. "The great thing about it all," he said, "is that a man born blind can now see. I learned by flashing a light close to his eyes that the optic nerve was not atrophied. Only the left eye showed a chance of giving sight; the right eye was completely »one. I gave him gas in order that the eye might be absolutely still, and then made an incision at the bottom of the eye. I went through the cornea, where I found a mass of substance, connective tissue, which lay behind the cornea. This was not growing and apparently had been there since birth. I pulled out the mass, about the size of a pea. "There was no pupil. It was what we call 'obliterated'—so I made one at the bottom of the iris, rather than m the centre, where the pupil normally is. This may cause him trouble in focus : ing, but can be corrected with glasses. By removal of this mass and the making of the pupil, the light could get through the lens to the retina, and, since the optic nerve was not atrophied, he can now see."

Mr. D. W.jLauhach described the joy and 'bewilderment of his nephew on his "awakening." "He seemed amazed when he first saw the hospital and its attaches," Mr. Laubach said. Everything was strange to him. He wanted to see everything at once. The colouring of flowers, particularly, fascinated him.