Dr. Franz on a Case of restored Vision. 157 



patient to view objects deliberately without pain, ribands differently 

 coloured were presented to his eye. These different colours he could 

 recognize, with the exception of yellow and green, which he fre- 

 quently confounded when apart, but could distinguish when both 

 were before him at the same time. Of all colours, gray produced 

 the most grateful sensation : red, orange and yellow, though they 

 excited pain, were not in themselves disagreeable ; while the effect of 

 violet and of brown was exactly the reverse, being very disagreeable, 

 though not painful. Brown he called an ugly colour : black pro- 

 duced subjective colours ; and white gave rise to a profusion of muscce 

 volitantes. When geometrical figures of different kinds were offered 

 to his view, he succeeded in pointing them out correctly, although 

 he never moved his hand directly and decidedly, but always as if 

 feeling with the greatest caution. When a cube and a sphere were 

 presented to him, after examining these bodies with great attention, 

 he said that he saw a quadrangular and a circular figure, and after 

 further consideration described the one as being a square, and the 

 other a disc, but confessed that he had not been able to form these 

 ideas until he perceived a sensation of what he saw in the points of 

 his fingers, as if he really touched the objects. Subsequent experi- 

 ments showed that he could not discriminate a solid body from a 

 plane surface of similar shape ; thus a pyramid placed before him, 

 with one of its sides towards his eye, appeared as a plane triangle. 



Two months after the above-mentioned operation, another was 

 performed on both eyes, for the cure of the congenital strabismus, 

 by the division of the tendons of the recti interni muscles, which pro- 

 duced a very beneficial effect on the vision of the left eye ; and even 

 the right eye, which had been amaurotic, gained some power of per- 

 ceiving light, and, from being atrophied, became more prominent. 

 Still it was only by slow degrees that the power of recognizing the 

 true forms, magnitudes, and situations of external objects was ac- 

 quired. In course of time, the eye gained greater power of con- 

 verging the rays of light, as was shown by the continually increasing 

 capacity of distinct vision by the aid of spectacles of given powers*. 



May 20. — The following papers were read, viz. — 



1. " Catalogue of Geological Specimens procured from Kergue- 

 len's Land during the months of May, June, and July, 1840." 



2. " Catalogue of Birds collected on board Her Majesty's Ship 

 Terror, between the Cape of Good Hope and Van Diemen's Land." 



3. " Description of Plants from Kerguelen's Land, collected in 

 May, June, and July, 1840." 



The above papers are by John Robertson, Esq., Surgeon of Her 

 Majesty's Ship Terror, and were presented to the Society by the 

 Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, and communicated by the 

 President of the Royal Society. 



4. " On the Fossil Remains of Turtles discovered in the Chalk 



* In Phil. Mag., First Series, vol. xxviii. p. 203, will be found an ac 

 count, by Sir E. Home, of two children born with cataracts, and the 

 nature of their vision after the operations of depression and extraction.— 

 Edit. 



