62 CASK OF A* YOUNG GENTLEMAN 



It fliould be obferved, that though Mafter W. was fix 

 years younger than Mr. Chefelden's patient, he was remark- 

 ably intelligent, and gave the moft direct and fatisfaclory 

 anfwcrs to every queftion that was put to him. Both of them, 

 alio, if not born blind, loft their fight fo very early, that, as 

 Mr. Chefeiden exprefTes it, " they had not any recollection of 

 having ever feen." 



My rirft remark h, that, contrary to the experience of Mr; 

 Chefelden's patient, who is ftated " to have been fo far from 

 making any judgment of diftance, that he thought all objects 

 touched his eyes, as what he felt did his fkin." Matter W. 

 diftinguiuied, as foon as he was able to fee, a table, a yard 

 and a half from him ; and proved that he had fome accuracy 

 in his idea of diftance, by faying, that it was a little further 

 oft' than his hand could reach. This obfervation, fo contrary 

 to the account we have received of Mr. Chefeiden* s patient, 

 would have furpriied me much more than it did, if I had not 

 previously, in fome fimilar inftances, had reafon to fufpecf 

 that children, from whom cataracts had been extracted, had a 

 notion of diftance the firft moment they were enabled to fee. 

 Other infrancc3 In the inftance particularly of a young gentleman from Ire- 

 ijk?! 1 ? from land, fourteen years old, from each of whofe eyes I extracted 



Chefeiden. " f * 



a cataract, in the year 1794, in the prefeiice of Dr. Hamilton, 

 phyfician to the London Hofpital, and who, before the ope- 

 ration, afmred me, as did his friends, that he never had feen 

 the figure of any object, Dr. Hamilton and myfelf were much 

 aftoniihed by the facility with which, on the firft experiment, 

 he took hold of my hand at different diftances, mentioning 

 whether it was brought nearer to, or carried further from him, 

 and conveying his hand to mine in a circular direction, that 

 ■we might be the better fatisfied of the accuracy with which he 

 did it. In this cafe, however, and in others of a like nature^ 

 although the patients had been certainly been blind from early 

 infancy, I could not fatisfy myfelf that they had not, before 

 this period, enjoyed a fufficient degree of fight to imprefs the 

 image of vifible objects on their minds, and to give them idea* 

 which could not afterwards be entirely obliterated. In the' 

 inftance of Mafter W. however, no fufpicion of this kind 

 couM occur; fince, in addition to the declaration of himfelf 

 and his mother, it was proved by the teftimony of the furgeorr 

 2 who 



