WILL RADIUM GIVE SIGHT TO THE BLITD?

Evening Star, Issue 12027, 27 October 1903, Page 8

WILL RADIUM GIVE SIGHT TO THE BLITD?

Will radium ultimately enable-the blind to see? This is a question fraught with iucsiimablo significance to our unfortunate bp thren. Scientists have wiw discovered th,.',t it produces sensations of lit'dit in thv blind. Moved so ;\s to describe rvfrukir fornir, the sightless ran follow it with their useless eyes. They ran see circles just:- as one sees ;; lighted stick when it is circled in the Mir rapidly. They tan St e squares, parallelograms, polygons, curves, even letters and figures. This marvel of matter, this master of all the elements, hits such a power that eyes whirli have never foi-n light see it urnr. Retinas gone, optic nerves paralysed, slili, with all. the blessed light breaks in upon the darkened brains a.s a meteor blazes out in the night, (irr-ai seem the possibilities. Our savants are workinsr night arid day. Their failures are many. Radium ;:-• all but an unknown quantify as yet. rVo L'tvai discovery wa.s made in a. day. Neither will radium's wonderful properties be known in a day. The experiments may take years. One blind boy on whom everything else has failed has been made to see letters and figures. His rernly hand has traced upon paper what his sightless eye has caught in the ci:M'kne:>. - A Wonderful Operation.— lie bad never seen the light. " Jlopoless !" was the diagnosis made by more than one eminent eye specialist. Then came radium and \)r London. St. Petersburg's foremost oculist. The boy \v;u< the lucky one chosen for the experiment. "] sec light !" hi cried, when they held the radium, properly manipulate d. before his eyes. 'Those eyes had never known anything but utter blackness before—the blackness that the normal eve only knows in a darkened chamber with every rav carefully excluded. Slowly J)r Loudon described with the tiny box of radium some straifht lines behind ;»

screen. "What is thai'.'" li>> whispered to tli-' boy. "Draw it for me." Taper and pencil were placed in die boy's hand. Slowly his lingers traced something before him !ii the darkness. They took it: jo theliirht. fl was the. letter "A."' "Success." said Dr London, (piictly. The radium has traced an '* A " behind the screen. Faster and faster he worked, and as he did the Ik>v was Mm to follow him. lie had never known what .; circle looked like or a s<piare, bm he could draw them when once tie ma.'zie 1 allium had swiftly outlined them before his eyes, never responsive to snnlijrht. Many more experiments have also bif-n made. Other human have ben made to see light, too. Fersonx with Hernial sielit blindfolded in a darkened room have been able to follow the magic little bov containing the precious radium. " 1 made a hiind boy nee by means of radium, anil the fact, jusruies a detailed di>--r-ii«.<ir>n of the new element's properties and the hopes it holds out to suffering mankind." writes Professor C S. London, M.I). " The radium preparation placed at. my disposal for experimental purposes looked, a', liivi M^hi. like a bit of ground tobacco, resembling it in substance and color. After I had satisfied myself to that effect, my assistant, a chemist, asked pennission to place a black bsnebec over my eye?. I wore it for five or seven minutes, when he came towards me with a small box containing the very radium f had previously examined. Holding the box before my covered eyes at a distance, of from four to six and a-half inches, the following sensaikms manifested themselves:—My blindfolded right eye had a distinct perception of light, growing stronger as my assistant advanced upon me, at centimetre stages. It seemed as if my right eye had entered into a light sphere, yet there -were no sharp contours or outlines. Next, the boxed radium was brought towards my left eye, which up to then has scantily profited by the light-bringer. and immediately following the light sensation on my right eye became dim, while that in my left materially increased. I asked the assistant to place the radium, pasteboard cover and alk_i,g£q a jgns mctai mutchbox^

whereupon the experiments were renewed, the result being almost similar. The light sphere observed was but a shade less bright. Then I placed my hand over the blindfolded eye. and saw as much as before. Two friends put their hands over mine. Result. the same. Here, then, was a lightbearer for the more or less sishtle-s*. the degree lieing hardly of any consequence. Stitl blindfolded. I asked my assistant to point the radium towards my forehead. Then, too, I perceived the light, sensation described—that is. I saw the radium rays, not the boxes holding them prisoner-. Some time later a friend calied who has a peculiar narrow head. We held the box several inches away from thr back of lav head. Lis eyes being blindfolded. According to his description, he experienced the same light sensations that had astonished me. —The'Action Explained.-

"We next experimented in a dark room, dispensing, of course, with the blindfolding business. Ay expected, the same results were obtained. Still later a person possessed of one. sound and one blind eye was experimented with. It followed that the light impressions conveyed by radium <>n the sound eye; were stronger than those en the other." This newly - discovered action of radium upon the blind is not hard te explain, rays an eminent, oculist who ha« been interviewed. The light centres of the brain ;irc in the cortical section. Kven though the person is stone Mind, by means of extraneous excitement, a sensation of light-.can be produced. It- appears- more, as a fofm of flnoresce.ncr. Even with a retina or an optic nerve it. is conceivable that, such sensations could be produced. The mvs> terious agent, whatever it may hj«. excites the nervn eentrcs. and so produces the sensation. (\f light. That is because we see Willi onr brain, not with our eyes.---' Science Sifting*.'

She " I've heard th;it von are engacetl to one of the Kolrinson twins. Well, how do you msuiagn when—ear—you want to <listiiisruish between them?"' The Cheerful Idiot.: "I—l r.orvc.- trv."