GRAFTING AN EYE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3464, 2 March 1912, Page 9

GRAFTING AN EYE.

OPHTHALMIST’ S WONDERFUL OPERATION.

An experiment, resulting in the partial restoration of a blind eye, lias been reported to the Academy of Science by Professor Dastre, ;o,n behalf of Dr Magitot, who performed the experiment. He grafted on to the cornea (the transparent membrane covering the eyeball) of one eye of a man blind in both eyes a piece of the cornea from another man’s eye, and part- of the blind eye’s vision has now returned. Dr Magitot had two patients suffering from eye trouble. One of them had completely lost his sight. The cornea of one eye had been burnt by quicklime, and the scar which followed obstructed vision. The other man was suffering from glaucoma, a disease, of the eye which causes blindness, although the cornea may be perfectly sound. One of the man’s eyes was removed, but Dr Magitot preserved a small portion of the healthy cornea in a serum and kept it “alive” for eight days. Meantime, in the scar on the other man’s cornea he cut, as it were, a tiny peephole about twice the size of a pinhead and then applied the preserved part of the haltliy corna. as the “window pane” for this peep-hole. Within a few days the healthy tssnes joined up. A few weeks afterwards the bandages were taken off and the patient was able to see sufficiently to find his way about. The phthalmist has watched his patient’s progress for the past six months, and lie was able to report to the academy recently that one-tenth of the mail’s normal vision had been restored successfully. Scientists attach even more importance in this experiment to the fact that the cornea, which at death rapidly becomes opaque, was preserved in a healthy condition in serum.