Gift for eye-research machine

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32679, 7 August 1971, Page 18

Gift for eye-research machine

Mr E. J. Woodbury, a retired businessman, of Sydenham, presented a cheque for $lOOO to the Foundation of the Blind yesterday afternoon to help with the cost of providing the necessary ancillary equipment for the electro-retinograph machine at the Christchurch Hospital.

The money given by Mr Woodbury, which has since been added to with a grant of $lOOO from the Canterbury Research Fund, has been used to pay for most of a computer which was necessary for

special eye-research purposes, costing more than $3OOO. To make up the rest of the computer’s cost, the Christchurch North Lions club was at present investigating the possibility of help, said Mr R. W. Williamson, a member of the club, who has personally given a year’s supply of film for the machine.

Mr Woodbury said that he first thought of making the gift last month when he read in “The Press” about the trustees of the New Zealand Foundation for the Blind paying for the machine. Mr Woodbury is a member of the auxiliary of the Christchurch branch of the foundation and has often driven blind persons to and from the Bristol Street headquarters

and to the hospital for therapy. His sister, Miss K. Woodbury, has been a patient at “Fernwood” for about five years. The electro-retinograph measured the electric current produced by the eye in millionths of a volt over a thousandth of a second, said Dr H. Jenner Wales, who has worked the machine voluntarily since it was first installed in the hospital. Dr Wales, a Christchurch eye specialist, spends two hours each Friday afternoon, during which time he can fit in two patients. The work takes two hours thorough investigation under the machine.

Functions of the nerve at the back of the eye, which cannot be seen normally by an eye specialist, can be detected electrically through the machine.

After the cheque was presented, Dr Wales took his first, patient, Mr S. T. Taylor, aged 26 (shown on the couch in the photograph) who has a cataract in the right eye. The nerve can only be seen through the cataract by using the electro-retinograph. The photograph above shows the electro-retino-graph machine with the computer in the bottom left comer. Dr Wales (left) is receiving the cheque from Mr Woodbury. Mr L A Bennett, deputy chairman of the North Canterbury Hospital Board, is in the middle. Mr Taylor is on the couch.