BLIND. 



595. 



Blind, said, he knew to be but part of the house, yet he 

 v ' could not conceive that the whole house could look 

 bigger. Befort 'ie was couched, he expected little 

 advantage from seeing, worth undergoing an opera- 

 tion for, except reading and writing ; for, he said, he 

 thought he could have no more pleasure in walking 

 abroad than he had in the garden, which he could do 

 safely and readily. And even blindness, he observed, 

 had this advantage, that he could go any where iu 

 the dark much better than those who can see ; and 

 after he had seen, he did not soon lose this valuable 

 quality, nor desire a light to go about the house in 

 the night. He said, every new object was a new de- 

 light ; and the pleasure was so great, that he wanted 

 ways to express it. But his gratitude to his opera- 

 tor he could not conceal ; never seeing him for some 

 time without tears of joy in his eyes, and other marks 

 of affection ; and if he did not happen to come at 

 any time when he was expected, he would be so 

 grieved, that he could not forbear crying at the dis 

 appointment. 



" A year after his first seeing, being carried upon 

 Epsom Downs, and observing a large prospect, he 

 was exceedingly delighted with it, and called it a 

 new kind of seeing. And, now, being lately couch- 

 ed of his other ere, he says, that objects at first ap- 

 peared large to this eye, but not so large as they did 

 at first to the other ; and looking upon the same ob- 

 ject with both eye3, he thought it looked about twice 

 as large as with the first couched eye only, but not 

 double, that we can any way discover." 



Mr Cheselden adds, in another paper printed by 

 itself, that he has brought to sight several others, 

 who had no remembrance of erer having seen ; and 

 that they all gave the same account of their learning 

 to see, as they called it, with the young gentleman 

 above mentioned, though not in so many particulars ; 

 and that they all had this in common, that, having 

 never had occasion to move their eyes, they knew 

 not how to do it, and, at first, could not at all direct 

 them to a particular object ; but in time they acqui- 

 red that faculty, though by slow degrees. 



Some later observations, however, of a similar kind, 

 seem rather at variance with Mr Cheselden's conclu- 

 sions concerning the first notions of vision of those 

 who have been couched for cataracts after having 

 been deprived of sight from their earliest years ; al- 

 though, perhaps, the difference may be more appa- 

 rent than real. In the Philosophical Transactions 

 for 1801, there is a paper on this subject, by Mr J. 

 Ware, surgeon, who has had great practice in couch- 

 ing for cataracts, and who had, in this manner, re- 

 stored to sight many young persons, who had no re- 

 collection of ever having seen ; all of whom, how- 

 ever, he found had a notion of distance, and of 

 the forms of objects, even from the very first moment 

 that they recovered their light. The case which he 

 particularly describes in this paper, is that of a Mas- 

 ter W., whom he restored to sight at seven years of 

 age, after having been deprived of it by cataracts be- 

 fore he was a year old. 



" I performed the operation," says Mr Ware, " on 

 the left eye, on the 29th of December last, in the 

 presence of Mr Chamberlayne, F. A. S. ; Dr Bradley 

 of Baliol College, Oxford; and Mr Piatt, surgeon in 



Blind. 



London. It is not necesaary, in this place, to enter 

 into a description of the operation. It will be suffi- 

 cient to say, that the child, during its performance, a c ^ id 

 neither uttered an exclamation, nor made the smallest couched by 

 motion either with his head or his hands. The eye was Ware, 

 immediately bound up, and no inquiries made on that 

 day with regard to his .sight. On the 30th, I found 

 that he had experienced a slight sickness on the pre- 

 ceding evening, but had made no complaint of pain 

 either in his head or eye. On the 31st, as soon as I 

 entered his chamber, the mother, with much joy, in- 

 formed me, that her child could see. About an hour 

 before my visit he was standing near the fire, with 

 handkerchief tied loosely over his eyes, when he told 

 her, that under the handkerchief, which had slipped 

 upward, he could distinguish the table, by the side 

 of which she was sitting. It was about a yard and a 

 half from him ; and he observed, that it was covered 

 with a green cloth, (which was really the case,) and 

 that it was a little farther off than he was able to 

 reach. No farther questions were asked him at that 

 time, as his mother was much alarmed lest the use 

 , thus made of his eye might have been premature and 

 injurious. Upon examination, I found that it was 

 not more inflamed than the other eye, and the opacity 

 in the pupil did not appear to be much diminished. 



" Desirous, however, to ascertain, whether he was 

 able to distinguish objects, I held a letter before him 

 at the distance of about twelve inches, when he told 

 me, after a short hesitation, that it was a piece of 

 paper ; that it was square, which he knew by its 

 corners ; and that it was longer in one direction than 

 it was in the other. On being desired to point to 

 the corners, he did it with great precision, and rea- 

 dily carried his finger in the line of its longest diame- 

 ter. I then shewed him a small oblong band-box, 

 covered with red leather; which he said was red, and 

 square, and pointed at once to its four corners. After 

 this, I placed before him an oval silver box, which he 

 said had a shining appearance ; and, presently after- 

 wards, that it was round, because it had not corners. 

 The observation, however, which appeared to me 

 most remarkable, was that which related to a white 

 stone mug ; which he first called a white bason, but 

 soon after, recollecting himself, said, it was a mug, 

 because it had a handle. These experiments did not 

 give him any pain ; and they were made in the pre- 

 sence of his mother, and of Mr Woodford, a clerk to 

 his majesty's treasury. I held the objects at different 

 distances from his eye, and inquired very particularly 

 if he was sensible of any difference in their situation, 

 which he always said he was, informing me, on every 

 change, whether they were brought nearer to or car- 

 ried farther from it. 



" I again inquired, both of his mother and of him- 

 self, whether he had ever, before this time, distin- 

 guished, by sight, any sort of object r" and I- was as- 

 sured by both, that he never had on any occasion ; 

 and that, when he wished to discover colours, which 

 he could only do when they were very strong, he 

 had always been obliged to hold the coloured object 

 close to his eye, and a little on one side, to avoid the 

 projection of the nose. No further experiments were 

 made on that day. On the 1st of January, I found 

 that his eye continued quite free both from pain and 



