CHILDREN BORN BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 105 



On the loth I saw him aguin, and I told him his eye was so j^^JjJJ 

 - well, that he might gfb about as he pleased without leaving ation , 

 the room. He immediately went to the window, and called 

 out, " What is that moving ?" 1 asked him what he thought 

 it was: lie said, " A dog drawing a wheelbarrow. There 

 is one, two, three dog« drawing another. How very pretty !" 

 These proved to be earts and horses on the road, which he 

 saw from a two pair of stairs window. 



On the 19th, the different coloured pieces of card were 

 separately placed before his eye, and so little had he gained 

 in thirteen days, that he could not without counting 

 their comers one by one tell their shape. This he did with 

 great facility, running his eye quickly along the outline, so 

 that it was evident he was still learning, just as a child learns 

 to read. He had got so far as to know the angles, when 

 they were placed before him, and to count the number be- 

 longing to any one object. 



The reason of his making so slow a progress was, that 

 these figures had never been subjected to examination by 

 touch, and were unlike any thing he was accustomed to see. 



lie had got so much the habit of assisting his eyes with 

 his hands, that nothing but holding them could keep them 

 from the object. 



On the 2Gth the experiments were again repeated on the 

 couched eye, to ascertain the degree of improvement which 

 had been made. It was now found that the boy, on looking 

 at any one of the cards in a good light, could tell the form 

 nearly as readily as the colour. 



From these two cases the following conclusions may be 

 drawn : 



That, where the eye, before the cataract is removed, has General am* 

 only been capable of discerning light, without being able to cIusK,ns ' 

 distinguish colours, objects after its removal will seem to 

 touch the eye, and there will be no knowledge of their out- 

 line; which confirms the observations made by Mr. Chesel- 

 den : 



That where the eye has previously distinguished colours, 

 there must also be an imperfect knowledge of distances, 

 but not of outline, which however will afterwards be very 

 soon acquired, as happened in Mr. Ware's cases. This is 



proved 



