HICKSON MISSION

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 105, 31 October 1923, Page 4

HICKSON MISSION

NURSE HEMSWORTH'S CASE

REPORTED CURE OF BLINDNESS.

(BT KIEORAPH.— SHCJAL TO IBS TOST.)

AUCKLAND, This Day. Further reference is made in the current issue of the "Auckland Church Gazette" to the case of Nurse Hemsworth, of Crow's Nest, New South Wales, who was reported to have been cured of blindness during Mr. Hickson's mission at Bathurst. The Gazette states that a Sydney specialist nominated by an Auckland surgeon to investigate the reported cure, has declined to act. Ho wished to avoid publicity for professional reasons. A report of. the case has been received from Dr. Temple Smith, who performed an operation on Nurse' Hemsworth's eyes some six years .ago, and examined them again after the mission. The Gazette has also received another letter from Rev. W. Cleugh Black, enclosing a certificate from Dr. Baring Deck and two other documents bearing on the case.

The Gazette says : "The available material is quite sufficient to prove conclusively that immediately before the mission one of Nurse Hemsworth's eyes was blind and the. other partially blind, and 1 that after the mission her sight became quite normal. These facts are established by the testimony of Nurse Hemsworth and her friends. If Nurse Hemsworth is" an honest and intelligent_ woman, and no one suggests that ; she is not, the evidence' of her immediate -personal experience is conclusive. Dr. Temple Smith admits that he treated her for secondary glaucoma six years ago. .He.is not .in a position to say what happened between that date and Mr. Hickson's visit, but all the evidence goes to show that during the interval the state of Nurse Hemsworth's eyes became much worse. The fact of the disease and the fact of the cure are firmly established. It is when we come to the explanation of these facts that a difference of opinion arises. Was it an organic disease or functional disorderthat was cured? Was the cure due to the agency of Mr. Hickson or to the operation performed six -years previously by Dr. Temple Smith, or to seine other cause? Dr. Temple Smith's report bears out the opinion expressed by the Auckland surgeon in the September issue of the "Gazette" that tho operation may have removed all physical impediments to vision, but that the actual recovery of sight was prevented by some functional derangement which was removed at the mission. Dr. Temple Smith grudgingly admits that for relief ol this functional derangement Mr ™ <J? quite welc °me to any credit. nf II (f lZet- e" ,adds : "The removal 01 tne lunctional derangement onav seem a small matter to Dr. Temple hmith, but it is an all-important thing as far as the patient is concerned; it means all-the difference between blindness and normal sight. The, medical explanations, very interesting from a scientific point of view, . cannot shake Miss Hemsworth's testimony. She was b. lmd- „ *°w sees. The cure has ee SklV nVeStigati °n ' and "