"Blind Could Gain Sight” From Eyes As Legacy

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29723, 17 January 1962, Page 10

"Blind Could Gain Sight” From Eyes As Legacy

The eyes of dead persons may be used io give sight to those afflicted w’.h certain types of blindness, the medical superintendent-in-chief of the North Canterbury Hospital Board (Dr. T. Morton) said yesterday. “The cornea of the eye of even an old person may be grafted into someone else’s eye,” he said. “Any person wishing to make bis eyes available in this way after death should arrange with his solicitor for this provision in his will

“On receipt of advice that a person’s eyes were willed to us, our ophthalmologists would choose a suitable pati-

ent if one was availrtle, and prepare him to receive the graft." Other body tissues which in some cases cc-’Jd be successfully grafted from one person to another wer-- the arteries, but these had to come from young, healthy persons and so were normally only taken after a de? th through accident. An arterial graft bank of such material was kept In Auckland, and this had been drawn on from hospitals in other part: of New Zealand including Christchurch. Plastic tubes, however, were tending to displace natural artery material for such operations. In general, no other part of the body could be successfully grafted fror- one person to another except between identical twins. The whole body, however, could be put to the service of medicine by willing it to the Otago Medical School for research or for anatomical specimens to help train students.

Dr. Morton warned that, after a person died, his executors had full control over what was to be done with his body and they could overrule any d’rection in the will leaving the body to the medical profession. The executors could not, however. turn over a body for medical use unless a clear direction to this effect was given in the will.