when deprived of the Crystalline Lens. 3 
state, and the other without defect, except what arose from the 
removal of the lens : and the results appeared to be satisfactory 
in deciding, that the eye, when deprived of the crystalline lens, 
retains a power of adjustment. 
Opportunities of instituting experiments of this kind very 
rarely occur ; the patients who have had their lenses extracted, 
either not seeing sufficiently well, or being too much advanced 
in life to be fit subjects for that purpose; but, in the year 1798, 
the following case came under my care, which enabled me to 
make some further observations, in confirmation of the former 
experiments. 
Henry Miles, a carpenter, at Westborough Green in Sussex, 
fifty years of age, applied, in the month of August, 1798, at 
St. George’s Hospital, to be admitted as a patient, on account of 
blindness, from having a cataract in each eye ; and was received 
under my care. Both the cataracts were extracted ; and the 
eyes recovered from the effects of the operation, without suffer- 
ing from inflammation. The right eye had the power of seeing 
objects with unusual distinctness ; but the- left was less perfect, 
the iris having been slightly torn, by the lens being too big to 
pass through the aperture, without injuring the membrane. 
As soon as this man’s eyes had recovered, I requested Mr. 
Ramsden to repeat some of the former experiments, on his right 
eye; which he readily agreed to do. Before the experiments 
were made, upon trying what was his power of vision with the 
naked eye, we were agreeably surprised to find that he saw 
so distinctly, as to admit of our ascertaining, without the aid of 
glasses, what were the ranges of his eye’s adjustment. 
A piece of pasteboard, with a letter of a moderate size, as an 
object upon it, was put into his hands ; as he could not read, the 
B 2 
