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XXXI. 



NOTE ON DEFECTIVE VISION AND OTHER OCULAR 

 DERANGEMENTS IN CORNELIUS MAGRATH, THE 

 IRISH GIANT. Br H. R. SWANZY, A.M., M.B., F.R.C.S.I. 



(COITMITKICATED BY D. J. CTJXNUTGHAM, M.D.) 

 [Eead December 10, 1894.] 



In June, 1891, Professor D. J. Cunningliam presented to this Academy 

 a paper^ on the subject of the skeleton of the Irish giant, Cornelius 

 Magrath (died a.d. 1760, set. 23), in which he gave an exhaustive 

 description of this most interesting museum specimen. Professor 

 Cunningham there also pointed out, for the first time, that Magrath 

 must have been the subject of the disease known as acromegaly. 

 Certain appearances on the interior of the base of the skull caused 

 surprise in Dr. Cunningham's mind that no mention is made of a defect 

 of sight in any of the contemporary descriptions of the giant now 

 extant, but he does not pursue the subject further. Yet it must be 

 remembered that in these fragmentary accounts of the giant, and which 

 are, for the most part, of the nature of advertisements — Magrath having 

 been exhibited over the Kingdom and on the Continent — the giant is 

 represented as a strikingly handsome person, although a study of the 

 lower jaw and of the other bones of the face, and of those of the general 

 skeleton, demonstrates that he must have had a forbidding countenance, 

 with an ungainly figure, and knock-knees. Hence the omission of a 

 statement concerniag any failure of eyesight need not be wondered at ; 

 and my belief is that his vision was far from good, and that he probably 

 laboured under other ocular derangements. The grounds for this view 

 are as follows : — 



One of the most remarkable, and, after a certain period, one of the 

 most_constant symptoms of acromegaly is that condition of sight known 

 as bi-temporal hemianopsia : that is, loss of power, in the inner, or 

 nasal, half of each retina, with resulting blindness of the outer, or 



1 Trans. Eoy. Ir. Acad., vol. xxix. (Pt. 16), p. 553. 



