BLIND HELP BLIND

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 March 1934, Page 10

BLIND HELP BLIND

PART OF EYE GRAFTED.

LONDON, February 2

The 12,000 mile journey to London undertaken by Mr Lionel Q. Potter, from Trinidad, for the purpose of having a piece of steel removed from his eye is by no means an isolated, or even an exceptional, case. Mi* Potter was operated on at the Royal London Ophthalmic (Moorfields Eye) Hospital. A patient who came to the hospital, •from British Guiana recently has promised to send, as a lasting mark of his gratitude, two doors of native wood for use in the new hospital now being erected. Another recent patient came all the way from Australia. Doctors all over the world have been astonished by a brilliant operation performed at the hospital on a Newcastle man’s eyes by the Cardiff surgeon, Dr. J. W. Tudor Thomas. Today the patient is walking about with part of the eye of another man and part of the eye of a woman grafted on his own. He is gradually getting back his sight, and is expected to recover perfect vision. This man is Mr H. H. Watson, 29, of Brinkburn Avenue, Swalwell, who suffered from almost complete blindness for 25 years. Doctors from America, India, and the Continent have made special visits to see him, and Sir Duke Elder, the King’s eye surgeon, also visited him.

PART OF CORNEA REMOVED. Last June Mr Thomas removed the diseased cornea (the thin skin covering the pupil of the eye) from Mr Watson’s right eye, and replaced it with that of a man who was blind, but whose eye in this respect was sound. Both men were on the operating table at the same time so that the tiny blood vessels of .the eye should not congeal through over-exposure. The cornea of a woman was used at a later operation. Mi- Watson has met the man, but not the woman, and he does not know the names of either. Mr Watson said yesterday that at one time he was drummer in a Bishop Auckland dance band. He used to play by ear. Now he can read music, alnd hopes for another engagement when his eyes are completely recovered.

.The electro-magnet now used for the removal of metal makes the operation much easier than when an incision had to be made into the eye itself. The metal is first located with X-rays, and the magnet is so adjusted that the metal is withdrawn through the wound which it made on entry. This avoids further damage of the tissue.

The hospital is working under great disadvantages while the building is being reconstructed. This will cost about £lOO,OOO, towards which £BO,OOO has already been collected. The work is to be finished by the end of the year, and if the new building can be opened free of debt ahi anonymous la?t £4 500 haS pr ° misecl t 0 give the