BORN BLIND AND DEAF. 25 



steady for so delicate an operation ; but that his struggles were 

 so violent as to render every effort for this purpose ineffectual. 

 The attempt at extraction was therefore relinquished; but, 

 soon afterwards, I had the satisfaction of being informed by 

 Mr Wardrop, that he had so far succeeded, by the use of the 

 couching-needle, in breaking down the cataract, and removing 

 it from the axis of the eye, that his young patient had been 

 able to see a very small object of a white colour, when placed 

 on a table before him. This partial success from Mr War- 

 drop's operation, led me to anticipate, with no small confi- 

 dence, a still further improvement in young Mitchell's vision, 

 from the gradual absorption of some of the broken fragments 

 of the opaque lens or its capsule. But in this expectation I 

 have been altogether disappointed. In the month of June last, 

 I saw him repeatedly at his father's house, and had ample op- 

 portunity of observing his motions with attention. When he 

 approached any object, such as a wall, a cart, or a carriage, so 

 large as to be in part interposed between his eyes and the ho- 

 rizon, he seemed to discover its vicinity by the interception of 

 the light which it occasioned alone, and cautiously put out his 

 hands before him, to feel for that with which he was already 

 almost in contact. But he did not appear to be at all capable 

 of perceiving minute objects, nor of distinguishing in the 

 slightest degree between one colour and another. His powers 

 of vision, therefore, so far from continuing to improve since 

 the successful result of Mr Wardrop' s operation, have but too 

 plainly undergone a degree of failure. A fragment of the sub- 

 stance of the lens, or of its capsule, very white and opaque, 

 may still be seen behind one-half of the pupil, and through the 

 lower half, a slighter opacity is very perceptible in the parts 

 situated farther back *• 



Vol. VII. D » On 



* " You will perceive, from the account of the state of the cataract 



immediately after the operation, that a part of the opaque body still hung over 



