EYE SURGERY IN LONDON

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29326, 4 October 1960, Page 14

EYE SURGERY IN LONDON

Some Vision For Darfield Roy

Martin Judd, the boy who left New Zealand almost completely blind in July, returned last evening with partial vision assured. His eyes were operated on in London five weeks ago by a famous eye surgeon, Sir Stewart Duke-Elder. Before he left New Zealand he was only able to distinguish a number of colours, and he now will have some vision in one of his eyes. Martin Judd suffered an eye injury from a fencing staple on his father’s farm in Darfield'. 1 His father is Mr W. O. Judd. Martin was then aged 10. The eye became inflamed and at first it was thought that the inflammation was only blood. When the eye became worse he was taken to hospital for an operation for the repair of the injury. The inflammation, however, continued.

Martin Judd spent nearly two years in the 1 New Zealand Foundation for the Blind hostel in Auckland. His parents then decided to send him overseas for the operation of removing the cataract from his right eye. The left eye, which had been struck by the staple, was known to be beyond repair. A Christchurch specialist arranged for the boy to consult Sir Stewart Duke-Elder. Martin and his mother left on July 17 for England. “Sad Case’’ “This boy of yours arrived here and I have not seen such a sad case for a long time,” wrote Sir Stewart Duke-Elder to the Christchurch specialist. Mrs Judd said that she was told that the alternatives were to have the operation with the possibilities of partially restored sight, complete loss of sight with perhaps disfigurement of the eye, or not to risk the operation. The fear, Mrs Judd said, was that the eye would not heal. The doctors were confident that the catract brought about in the uninjured eye by a sympathetic inflammation, could be removed. In a later letter Sir Stewart Duke-Elder wrote: “His eye did really very well and he is now running about very happily and being visually much too independent for his mother’s peace of mind.” “He will probably never be able to read,” said Mrs Judd last evening, “but with the aid of spectacles he will be able to see a certain amount” Sir Stewart Duke-Elder according to the specialist is the world’s leading authority on ophthalmology. He has been surgeonocculist to the Queen since 1952, and held the same position for King Edward VIH and King George VI.