SIGHT BY SURGERY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 197, 18 August 1909, Page 2

SIGHT BY SURGERY.

A WONDERFUL OPERATION

The Daily Mai! describes a wonderful eye operation recently performed by a surgeon at the London Ophthalmic Hospital. A man had his sight destroyed by an explosion in a South African mine, and was tojd by the Continental specialists that there was absolutely tno hope for him. The operation is thus described:—"When the patient first came to the hospital the right eye was totally destroyed, while the left one was intensely inflamed, and the cornea, or projecting front part, was clotted with fragments of quartz blown into it at the time of the explosion. The capsule of the lens had been torn by other jagged particles of rock, and the whole lens i had been absorbed. Only the cap-

! sule remained to separate the fluid in the ball of the eye from the iris, or coloured screen which surrounds the pupil. The first treatment consisted of picking out the quartz particles, Some of which were embedded even in the muscles which rotate the eye. Then the irritation was reduced by lotions. The greater part of the cornea was opaque, on account of the old scar tissue, the result of the early inflammation, but a fairly transparent part was selected, and a portion of the iris, or screen behind this, was then cut away, so as to let the light fall on the sensitive retina, or lining of the back part of the eye. As the man's natural lens within the eye had already been destroyed, he now has to wear a glass lens the eye to make the entering rays of light focus correctly on his retina. His rane;e of vision is limited^but he can read the finest type easily, and instead of enduring his days in an institute for the blind, he should be able to earn his own living at some employment which does not make too great a demand on the eye-sight.

"I guess we saw the solution of the mysterious lights, and probably of the airship also, up at Woodhaugh," said Mr G. B. Nicholls to a Dunedin Star reporter. "It has been well said that there is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and it was exemplified at Woodhaugh. Coming down to a meeting at a quarter-past seven, my attention was attracted by the exclamations of the people to mysterious lights in the sky. There they were, in full sight, coming majestically down the centre : of the, Woodhaugh Valley, several hundred feet in the air. This was undoubtedly the genuine airship. There was the pepuliar wavy motion all the observers have chronicled; there were the two small lights above and fhe larger light suspended below, as several others have described it; there was also the sinking up and down, the steady, controlled movement, and the whole bill of fare. Even as we looked it sailed majestically towards us, and we began to listen for the whirr of machinery, and began to strain our eyes for this world's wonder, when a change came o'er the scene. Whether it was that the small boys ran too fast, whether they came to the end of the string they were letting out, or whether an extra-strong gust of wind upset their calculations, Ido not know; but certain it is that the majestic airship became suddenly transformed> into a ducking kite., Over she went, and dived to earth, helpless and inglorious. There were two lights at the kite itself, one each side, and one big one at the end of the tail. The imitation of an airship was certainly capital While it lasted."

Says the Yorkshire Telegraph: — A correspondent reports a noteworthy speech" he heard the other day in Little Matlock Lane.' An old man was holding forth to a younger companion thus: "When I' wor a young chap, things wor different! It used to be 'Do to thi naber as thor would like 'im to do to thee,' but nar it's 'If> thi naber. 'as moor than thee, tak it thro' im\" :

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