STRANGE LOSS OF SIGHT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume X, Issue 2026, 15 September 1883, Page 2

STRANGE LOSS OF SIGHT.

In the course of a recent debate on vivisection in the Prussian Landtag, the Minister of Public Worship, Von Gossler, cited the following remarkable case : A young lady, belonging to an aristocratic family in Konigsberg, gradually loat her power of vision, until at last she wa9 entirely blind. Her eye, on being examined, was found to be perfectly sound, whence it followed that the seat of her trouble must be in the brain. All treatment proved unavailing, until the discovery was made that she had received some months previously a heavy blow on the head with a falling board. Professor Munck, the famous experimentalist, who examined her, convinced the oculist and the surgeon that the affected part must be that section of the brain which his experiments on monkeys had proved to be the central station for sensations of sight. The blow had evidently injured the membrane of the brain. This made perforation of the skull necessary — • a very difficult operation — which, however, in this case was comparatively simple, because the exact locality in the brain was known, whereas in the ease of a prince whose skull was perforated for a similar reason, previous to Dr Munck's discoveries, the operation had to be repeated thirty-two times. The young lady recovered her eyesight completely.""