STRUCK BLIND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3870, 15 May 1928, Page 50

STRUCK BLIND.

WORKMEN’S ORDEAL. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 26. The case of a riveter who was struck blind while working at a great height on a building in Sydney is puzzling doctors because the man was not subjected to any great shock which could have accounted for the seizure. There are on record scores-of cases of blindness which has followed some great shock to ths system, notably during the war. Harris Whitehead, the riveter in question, told a remarkable story. He said that he had been working about 60ft above the ground, and was hanging head downwards, from a girder, inserting rivets, when his eyesight suddenly failed. His position was a perilous one, but he climbed back to the girder and sat still for a few minutes, hoping that his sight would soon return. After a few minutes he called to other workmen and explained his plight. One of them carried Whitehead down a ladder, and he was conveyed to hospital. What mystified the doctors at the hospital was the fact that all the 12 cranial nerves appeared to be normal, and the man was certainly normal in ail other respects. This was a most unaccountable happening for, according to all experience, other sympathetic and allied cranial nerves, should have been affected when the man was struck blind. Whitehead explained that everything was black, and that he had a ‘‘splitting headache.” Day* later his eyesight began to return. It has been explained that such blindness could occur without any obvious cause. A queer example was that of Ruby Rugg of London, blind for four years, who regained her sight during an air raid. Recently Frank Smith, a boy at Orange, New South Wales, was stricken suddenly blind while at play, from n > ascertainable cause. Persons struck by lightning often remain blind for days. Clement Hickey, a Sydney boy, thus blinded in 1923, had his sight restored by hypnotic suggestion, given by a wellknown specialist In all these cases tie eyes are normal, but there is a “ block ” further back on the nerve path from the eye to the brain. Dumbness of this type is also common. A boy named Earnest Hill was struck dumb after he had been frightened bv a tramp. He was dumb for three months, and his speech returned when he was singled cut for a special prize by a Father Christmas at a Chritmas party. A remarkable case occurred at Cowna, New South Wales, in 1923, when Charles Lawrence was struck blind during a thunderstorm on a Monday, and his sight was restored during another storm on the following Friday.