SINGULAR RECOVERY OF SIGHT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 348, 19 December 1879, Page 19

SINGULAR RECOVERY OF SIGHT.

A curious ease of sudden blindness and subsequent restoration to Bight by means of the metal cure, and above all by statical electricity, is mentioned in the Journal des Debats as having been communicated to the wfcietie des Hopitaux by MM. Dujardin-Beaumetz and C. Abadie. On the 22nd of January, 1878, a young girl, aged 16, a pupil of the Seine normal school, complained of a dull pain in the head. She was accordingly sent to the infirmary, went to sleep, and on waking next morning found she was perfectly blind. On examination the eye was declared normal ; but M. Abadie had no difficulty in discovering that the whole surface of the body had become insensible to pain. Punctures made in the forehead, on the neck, on the arms, on the legs were not felt ; they did not even bleed. It seemed likely that he had to do with a case of hysterical amhlyopia. The successes obtained by MM. Charcot and Dumontpallier by the application in such cases of pieces of metal to the parts affected, according to Dr. Burg's method, are well known in France, and three pieces of gold were applied to the region of the left temple. At the end of a quarter of an hour the young girl declared that she began to see after a confused manner ; after half an hour the restoration of sight to the left eye was complete. On the right side there was no trace of the perception of light. A magnet was then applied. The sight slightly improved ; but at the end of ten minutes the patient felt so painful a sensation in the head that it was thought best to suspend the application of the magnet. The operation was recommenced more than once ; the pains in the kead became acute. During the third attempt the patient went to sleep, and fell into a lethargic state. Recourse was then had to the metallic therapeutics, experiments being made with other metals than gold, but without any very marked result. MM. Dujardin-Beaumetz and Abadie, who had shortly before read an interesting article on the core of certain hysterical manifestations by means of statical electricity, (Progres Medical, Nor. 8, 1879,) resolved to make trial of that method. The patient was placed on the insulated footstool of the electrical machine, and put in communication with one of the conductors. When she was sufficiently charged with electicity sparks were drawn from the rims of the orbits ; the explosion accompanying each spark called forth a pretty sharp sensation of pain. After a stance of a quarter of an hour her eyesight sensibly improved. The treatment was repeated every other day for a week ; the clouds which had obscured her vision were dispersed ; they had never returned, and the cure was pronounced complete.