born with Cataracts in their Eyes. 83 
The bandage was replaced, but so delighted was the boy 
with seeing, that he again immediately removed it. This cir- 
cumstance distressed the house-surgeon, who had been di- 
rected to prevent him from looking at any thing till the next 
day, when the experiment was to be repeated. Finding 
that he could not enforce his instructions, he thought it most 
adviseable to repeat the experiment about two hours after the 
operation. At first the boy called the different cards round ; 
but upon being shewn a square, and asked if he could find 
any corners to it, he was very desirous of touching it. This 
being refused, he examined it for some time, and said at last 
that he had found a corner, and then readily counted the four 
corners of the square ; and afterwards when a triangle was 
shewn him, he counted the corners in the same way ; but in 
doing so his eye went along the edge from corner to corner, 
naming them as lie went along. 
Next day, when I saw him, he told me he had seen “ the 
“ soldiers with their fifes and pretty things.” The guards in 
the morning had marched past the hospital with their band ; 
on hearing the music he had got out of bed, and gone to the 
window to look at them. Seeing the bright barrels of the 
musquets, he must in his mind have connected them with 
the sounds which he heard, and mistaken them for musical 
instruments. On examining the eye 24 hours after the ope- 
ration, the pupil was found to be clear. A pair of scissors 
was shewn him, and he said it was a knife. On being told 
he was wrong, he could not make them out ; but the moment 
he touched them he said they were scissors, and seemed de- 
lighted with the discovery. On being shewn a guinea at the 
distance of 15 inches from his eye, he said it was a seven 
mdcccvii. N 
