1837.] On restoration of sight to persons born blind. 51 



ing this period, when the absence of pain and inflammation permitted, 

 (for it was necessary for him to undergo several operations,) the ban- 

 dages were removed before and after sunset, and his attention was 

 directed to men sometimes standing, sometimes moving ; also to the 

 tent, sky, trees and their foliage, animals of different kinds, the 

 colors and figures and motions of which he was able in time to dis- 

 cern. 



There was no correspondence, however, for a long while between 

 the sight and touch, neither did he for several days direct his eyes 

 straight to objects so as to examine them minutely. At night he 

 would contemplate the stars, and the flame of a candle, and the fea- 

 tures of my face, &c. Debility, the necessary result of the treatment, 

 &c. in a delicate frame, was one cause of the slowness of progress. As 

 he gained strength by an improved diet, his vision greatly improved. 



He was observed to take up various objects and notice them ; latterly 

 I was in the habit of calling him into my tent when at breakfast. He 

 noticed the cups and saucers and their patterns ; chintz on the canvas; 

 and he observed attentively a hooka, describing the bell (cut glass) as 

 bright ; noticed the snake, and mouth-piece (silver), and saw dis- 

 tinctly the smoke ascending. 



On the 20th of December he walked several yards without assist- 

 ance. A lady gave him a colored chintz cap, with which he was 

 much pleased, and he distinguished on it the colors of green and 

 red, and the white ground. As his new sense could scarcely be said 

 to have been exercised more than fourteen days, further observations 

 could not be made as to his judgment of distances, positions, forms, 

 and motions. 



No. 3. — A similar result, as far as phenomena, occurred in a boy of 1 2 

 years of age, though his acquirements were more rapid, from his natural 

 mental intelligence being superior to the former cases : the cause 

 of his blindness was disease after birth from the small-pox. The nature 

 of the operation being the formation of an artificial pupil at the outer 

 corner of the eye, it is unnecessary to repeat the details which are so 

 similar to the preceding, and though he had seen for some weeks of 

 his early existence, of course he had to acquire all ' de novo* 



No. 4. — There are others who have been restored to sight who 

 had lost it at a more advanced period of life — say five or six years of 

 age and upwards, and when restored exhibit peculiar phenomena 

 more or less interesting in proportion to the degree of remembrance 

 they may possess of their former vision. And this was particularly 

 remarkable in a young man of 25 years of age, the brother of the 

 boy mentioned in case No. 2, who had become blind when only 5 years 

 h 2 



