These observations upon a human child, two days old, unquestionably acephalous, i. e., absolutely without cerebrum, but as to the rest of its body not in the least abnormal, prove what I have already advanced (vol. i, p. 203), that the cerebrum takes no part at all in the first movements of the newly-born. In this respect the extremely rare case of an acephalous child, living for some days, supplies the place of an experiment of vivisection. Unfortunately, the child died so early that I could not carry on further observations and experiments. The report of the post-mortem examination will be published by itself.

Every observer of young children knows the great variety in the rapidity of their development, and will agree with me in general that a slow and steady development of the cerebral functions in the first four years, but especially in the first two years, justifies a more favorable prognosis than does a very hasty and unsteady development; but when during that period of time there occurs a complete and prolonged interruption of the mental development, then the danger is always great that the normal course will not be resumed. So much the more instructive, therefore, are the cases in which the children after such a standstill have come back to the normal condition. Four observations of this kind have been published by R. Demme ("19. Bericht ueber das Jenner'sche Kinderspital in Bern, 1882," S. 31 bis 52). These are of so great interest in their bearing on psychogenesis, and they confirm in so striking a manner some of the propositions laid down by me in this book, that I should like to print them here word for word, especially as the original does not appear to have found a wide circulation; but that would make my book altogether too large. I confine myself, therefore, to this reference, with the request that further cases of partial or total interruption of mental development during the first year of life, with a later progress in it, may be collected and made public.

It is only in rare cases that microcephalous children can be observed, while living, for any considerable length of time continuously. In this respect a case described by Aeby is particularly instructive.

A microcephalous boy was born of healthy parents—he was their first child—about four weeks too soon. His whole body had something of stiffness and awkwardness. The legs were worse off in this respect than the arms; they showed, as they continued to show up to the time of his death, a tendency to become crossed. The boy was never able to stand or walk. He made attempts to seize striking objects, white or party-colored, but never learned actually to hold anything. The play of feature was animated. The dark eyes, shining and rapidly moving, never lingered long upon one and the same object. The child was much inclined to bite, and always bit very sharply. Mentally there was pronounced imbecility. In spite of his four years the boy never got so far as to produce any articulate sounds whatever. Even simple words like "papa" and "mamma" were beyond his ability. His desire for anything was expressed in inarticulate and not specially expressive tones. His sleep was short and light; he often lay whole nights through with open eyes. He seldom shed tears; his discomfort was manifested chiefly by shrill screaming. He died of pulmonary paralysis at the end of the fourth year.

The autopsy showed that the frontal lobes were surprisingly small, and that there was a partial deficiency of the median longitudinal fissure. The fissure did not begin till beyond the crown of the head, in the region of the occiput. The anterior half of the cerebrum consequently lacked the division into lateral hemispheres. It had few convolutions also, and the smoothness of its surface was at once obvious. The corpus callosum and the fornix were undeveloped. "The gray cortical layer attained in general only about a third of the normal thickness, and was especially weakly represented in the frontal region." The cerebellum not being stunted, seemed, by the side of the greatly shrunken cerebrum, surprisingly large.

In this case the microcephalous of four years behaves, as far as the development of will is concerned, like the normal boy of four months. The latter is, in fact, superior to him in seizing, while the former in no way manifests any advantage in a psychical point of view.

Two cases of microcephaly have been described by Fletcher Beach (in the "Transactions of the International Medical Congress," London, 1881, iii, 615-626).

E. R. was, in May, 1875, received into his institution at the age of eleven years. She had at the time of her birth a small head, and had at no time manifested much intelligence. She could not stand or walk, but was able to move her arms and legs. Her sight and hearing were normal. She was quiet and obedient, and sat most of the time in her chair. She paid no attention to her bodily needs. She could not speak and had to be fed with a spoon. After six months she became a little more intelligent, made an attempt to speak, and muttered something indistinctly. She would stretch out her hand when told to give it, and she recognized with a smile her nurse and the physician. Some four months later she would grind her teeth when in a pleasant mood, and would act as if she were shy when spoken to, holding her hand before her eyes. She was fond of her nurse. Thus there was capacity of observation, there were attention, memory, affection, and some power of voluntary movement. She died in January, 1876. Her brain weighed, two days after her death, seven ounces. It is minutely described by the author—but after it had been preserved in alcohol for six years, and it then weighed only two ounces. The author found a number of convolutions not so far developed as in the foetus of six months, according to Gratiolet, and he is of opinion that the cerebellum was further developed after the cerebrum had ceased to grow, so that there was not an arrest of the development but an irregularity. The cerebral hemispheres were asymmetrical, the frontal lobes, corresponding to the psychical performances in the case, being relatively pretty large, while the posterior portion of the third convolution on the left side, the island of Reil, and the operculum were very small, corresponding to the inability to learn to speak. The author connects the slight mobility with the smallness of the parietal and frontal ascending convolutions.

The other case is that of a girl of six years (E. H.), who came to the institution in January, 1879, and died in July of the same year. She could walk about, and she had complete control of her limbs. She was cheerful, easy to be amused, and greatly attached to her nurse. She associated with other children, but could not speak a word. Her hearing was good, her habits bad. Although she could pick up objects and play with them, it did not occur to her to feed herself. She could take notice and observe, and could remember certain persons. Her brain weighed, two days after death, 20-1/2 ounces, and was, in many respects, as simple as that of an infant; but, in regard to the convolutions, it was far superior to the brain of a monkey—was superior also to that of E. R. The ascending frontal and parietal convolutions were larger, corresponding to the greater mobility. The third frontal convolution and the island of Reil were small on both sides, corresponding to the alalia. The author is of opinion that the ganglionic cells in this brain lacked processes, so that the intercentral connections did not attain development.

A more accurate description of two brains of microcephali is given by Julius Sander in the "Archiv fuer Psychiatrie und Nerven-Krankheiten" (i, 299-307; Berlin, 1868), accompanied by good plates. One of these cases is that of which an account is given by Johannes Mueller (in the "Medicinische Zeitung des Vereins fuer Heilkunde in Preussen," 1836, Nr. 2 und 3).

In the full and detailed treatises concerning microcephali by Karl Vogt ("Archiv fuer Anthropologie," ii, 2, 228) and Von Flesch ("Wuerzburger Festschrift," ii, 95, 1882) may be found further data in regard to more recent cases.

Many questions of physiological and psychological importance in respect to the capacity of development in cases of imperfectly developed brain are discussed in the "Zeitschrift fuer das Idioten-Wesen" by W. Schroeter (Dresden) and E. Reichelt (Hubertusburg).

But thus far the methods of microscopical investigation of the brain are still so little developed that we can not yet with certainty establish a causal connection, in individual cases, between the deviations of microcephalic brains from the normal brain and the defects of the psychical functions. The number of brains of microcephali that have been examined with reference to this point is very small, although their scientific value, after thorough-going observation of the possessors of them during life, is immense. For microcephalous children of some years of age are a substitute for imaginary, because never practicable, vivisectory experiments, concerning the connection of body and mind.

To conclude these fragments, let me add here some observations concerning a case of rare interest, that of the microcephalous child, Margarethe Becker (born 1869), very well known in Germany. These observations I recorded on the 9th of July, 1877, in Jena, while the child was left free to do what she pleased.

The girl, eight years of age, born, according to the testimony of her father, with the frontal fontanelle (fonticulus anterior) closed and solid, had a smaller head than a child of one year. The notes follow the same order as that of the observations.

Time, 8.15 A. M.—The child yawns. She grasps with animation at some human skulls that she sees on a table near her, and directs her look to charts on the walls. She puts her fingers into her nostrils, brushes her apron with both hands, polishes my watch, which I have offered her and she has seized, holds it to one ear, then to one of her father's ears, draws her mouth into a smile, seems to be pleased by the ticking, holds the watch to her father's other ear, then to her own other ear, laughs, and repeats the experiment several times. Her head is very mobile.

The child now folds a bit of paper that I have given her, rolls it up awkwardly, wrinkling her forehead the while, chews up the paper and laughs aloud. Saliva flows from her mouth almost incessantly. Then the child begins to eat a biscuit, giving some of it, however, to her father and the attendant, putting her biscuit to their lips, and this with accuracy at once, whereas in the former case the watch was held at first near the ear, to the temple, and not till afterward to the ear itself.

The girl is very lively; she strikes about her in a lively manner with her hands, sees charts hanging high on the walls, points to them with her finger, throws her head back upon her neck to see them better, and moves her fingers in the direction of the lines of the diagrams. At last weariness seems to come on. The child puts an arm around the neck of her father, sits on his lap, but is more and more restless.

8.50.—Quiet. To appearance, the child has fallen asleep.

8.55.—Awake again. The child sees well, hears well, smells well; obeys some few commands, e. g., she gives her hand. But with this her intellectual accomplishments are exhausted. She does not utter a word.

Kollmann, who saw this microcephalous subject in September, 1877, writes, among other things, of her ("Correspondenzblatt der Deutschengesellschaft fuer Anthropologie," Nr. 11, S. 132):

"Her gait is tottering, the movements of the head and extremities jerky, not always co-ordinated, hence unsteady, inappropriate and spasmodic; her look is restless, objects are not definitely fixated. The normal functions of her mind are far inferior to those of a child of four years. The eight-year-old Margaret speaks only the word Mama; no other articulate sound has been learned by her. She makes known her need of food by plaints, by sounds of weeping, and by distortion of countenance; she laughs when presented with something to eat or with toys. It is only within the last two years that she has become cleanly; since then her appetite has improved. Her nutrition has gained, in comparison with the first years of life, and with it her comprehension also; she helps her mother set the table, and brings plates and knives, when requested to do so, from the place where they are kept. Further, she shows a tender sympathy with her microcephalous brother; she takes bread from the table, goes to her brother's bedside and feeds him, as he is not of himself capable of putting food into his mouth. She shows a very manifest liking for her relatives and a fear of strangers. When taken into the parlor she gave the most decided evidences of fear; being placed upon the table she hid her head in her father's coat, and did not become quiet until her mother took her in her arms. This awakening of mental activity shows that, notwithstanding the extremely small quantity of brain-substance, there exists a certain degree of intellectual development with advancing years. With the fourth year, in the case of M., independent movements began; up to that time she lay, as her five-year-old brother still lies, immovable in body and limbs, with the exception of slight bendings and stretchings."

Richard Pott, who (1879) likewise observed this microcephalous subject, found that she wandered about aimlessly, restlessly, and nimbly, from corner to corner [as if], groping and seeking; yet objects held before her were only momentarily fixated, scarcely holding her attention; often she did not once grasp at them. "The girl goes alone, without tottering or staggering, but her locomotive movements are absolutely without motive, having no end or aim, frequently changing their direction. Notwithstanding her size, the child gives the impression of the most extreme helplessness." She was fed, but was not indifferent as to food, seeming to prefer sour to sweet. She would come, indeed, when she was called, but seemed not to understand the words spoken to her; she spoke no word herself, but uttered shrill, inarticulate sounds; she felt shame when she was undressed, hiding her face in her sister's lap. The expression of her countenance was harmless, changeable, manifesting no definite psychical processes.

The statements contradictory to those of Kollmann are probably to be explained by the brevity of the observations.

Virchow ("Correspondenzblatt," S. 135), in his remarks upon this case, says: "I am convinced that every one who observes the microcephalic child will find that psychologically it has nothing whatever of the ape. All the positive faculties and qualities of the ape are wanting here; there is nothing of the psychology of the ape, but only the psychology of an imperfectly developed and deficient little child. Every characteristic is human; every single trait. I had the girl in my room a few months since, for hours together, and occupied myself with her; I never observed anything in her that reminds me even remotely of the psychological conditions of apes. She is a human being, in a low stage of development, but in no way deviating from the nature of humanity."

From these reports it is plain to be seen that for all mental development an hereditary physical growth of the cerebrum is indispensable. If the sensuous impressions experienced anew in each case by each human being, and the original movements, were sufficient without the development of the cerebral convolutions and of the gray cortex, then these microcephalous beings, upon whom the same impressions operated as upon other new-born children, must have had better brains and must have learned more. But the brain, notwithstanding the peripheral impressions received in seeing, hearing, and feeling, could not grow, and so the rudimentary human child could not learn anything, and could not even form the ideas requisite for articulate voluntary movement, or combine these ideas. Only the motor centers of lower rank could be developed.

In peculiar contrast with these cases of genuine microcephaly stands the exceedingly remarkable case, observed by Dr. Rudolf Krause (Hamburg), of a boy whose brain is not at all morbidly affected or abnormally small, but exhibits decidedly the type of the brain of the ape. The discoverer reported upon it to the Anthropological Society ("Correspondenzblatt a.a. O., S. 132-135) the following facts among others:

"The skull and brain belonged to a boy who was born on the 4th of October, 1869, the last of four children. Paul was scrofulous from his youth. He did not get his teeth until the end of his second year, and they were quite brown in color and were soon lost. According to the statement of Paul's mother, he had several successive sets of teeth. It was not until the fifth year that he learned to walk. He was cleanly from the third year, but not when he felt ill. His appetite was always good up to his last sickness of four weeks. His sleep was habitually undisturbed. He was of a cheerful temperament, and inclined to play; as soon as he heard music he would dance, and sing to the music in rather unmelodious tones. When teased he could be very violent; he would throw anything he could lay his hands on at the head of the offender. He liked the company of others, especially of men. By the time he was four years old he had learned to eat without help. Paul was very supple, was fond of climbing, and had great strength in his arms and hands especially; these had actually a horny appearance, and thus reminded one of the hands of the chimpanzee. He could sit on the ground with his legs wide apart. His gait was uncertain, and he was apt to tumble; he ran with knees bent forward and legs crooked; he was fond of hopping, and seemed particularly ape-like when doing so. The great-toe of each foot stood off at an angle from the foot, and thus gave the impression of a prehensile toe. I thought at first that this deviation had its origin in the fact that the child, on account of his uncertainty in walking, wanted to get a broader basis of support; but I afterward gave up that opinion, because I have never found an instance of a similar habit in other children with diseased heads, e. g., hydrocephalous children. Paul could speak but little, could say hardly any words except Papa and Mama, and even these he did not until late learn to pronounce in two syllables; he uttered for the most part only sounds that resembled a grunt. He imitated the barking of a dog by the sound rrrrrr. He frequently stamped with feet and hands, clapped his hands together, and ejaculated a sort of grunting sound, just as I have observed in the case of gorillas and chimpanzees.

"Paul was smaller than children of his age; on his right eye he had from his youth a large leucoma; the eyelids had generally a catarrhal affection, and were in a state of suppuration. The head looked sore; the forehead was small. Paul had a strongly marked tendency to imitation. His whole being, his movements, were strikingly ape-like. He was decidedly neglected by his parents, was generally dirty in appearance, and I really think the early death of the child was induced by the slight care taken of him. Paul was taken sick at the beginning of December, 1876, with an acute bronchial catarrh, and died on the 5th of January, 1877, at the age of seven and a quarter years.

"If you look at the cranium and the brain here, which belonged to the child just described, there are lacking in the first place all the characteristics of microcephaly. The cranium possesses a capacity of 1,022 cubic centimetres, and the brain weighs 950 grammes; they do not deviate, therefore, from the normal condition. But let the cranium, where it is laid open by the saw, be observed from within, and we notice an asymmetry of the two hemispheres of the brain; the cranium is pushed somewhat forward and to the right. The partes orbitales of the frontal bone are higher and more arched than is usual, in consequence of which the lamina cribrosa of the ethmoid bone lies deeper, and room is given for the well-known conformation of the ethmoidal process in the brain. The cerebral convolutions are plainly marked upon the inner surface of the cranium. The facial cranium shows no deviations. There is no prognathism. The formation of the teeth alone is irregular; one pre-molar tooth is lacking above and below in the jaw, and, in fact, there is no place for it. The incisors and the pre-molar teeth are undergoing change.

"The two cerebral hemispheres are asymmetrical; in the region where the parieto-occipital fissure is situated on the left hemisphere, the two hemispheres diverge from each other and form an edge which curves outward and backward, so that the cerebellum remains uncovered. On the lower surface of the frontal lobes there exists a strongly marked ethmoidal prominence. Neither of the fissures of Sylvius is quite closed, the left less so than the right; the operculum is but slightly developed, and the island of Reil lies with its fissures almost entirely uncovered. This conformation reminds us throughout of the brain of the anthropoid apes. The two sulci centrales sive fissurae Rolandi run straight to the border of the hemisphere, less deeply impressed than is normally the case, without forming an angle with each other. Very strongly and deeply impressed sulci praecentrales seem to serve as substitutes for them. The sulcus interparietalis, which begins farther outward than in the ordinary human being, receives the sulcus parieto-occipitalis—a structure in conformity with the typical brain of the ape. The sulcus occipitalis transversus, which is generally lightly stamped in man, extends here as a deep fissure across over the occipital lobe, thus producing a so-called simian fissure, and the posterior part of the occipital lobe has the appearance of an operculum. The fissura calcarina has its origin directly on the surface of the occipital lobe, does not receive until late the fissura parieto-occipitalis, and goes directly, on the right side, into the fissura hippocampi. This abnormal structure also is typical for the brain of the ape.

"The gyrus occipitalis primus is separated from the upper parietal lobe by the sulcus parieto-occipitalis, a formation that, according to Gratiolet, exists in many apes. The gyrus temporalis superior is greatly reduced on both sides, and has an average breadth of only five millimetres; it is the one peculiarity that recalls emphatically the brain of the chimpanzee, which always has this reduced upper temporal convolution.

"We have here, then, a brain that scarcely deviates from the normal brain in volume, that possesses all the convolutions and fissures, seeming, perhaps, richer than the average brain in convolutions, and that is in every respect differentiated; and notwithstanding all this it approximates, in its whole structure, to the simian rather than to the human type. Had the brain been placed before me without my knowing its origin, I should have been perfectly justified in assigning this brain to an anthropoid ape standing somewhat nearer to man than does the chimpanzee."

No second case of this sort has thus far been observed.

C.

REPORTS CONCERNING THE PROCESS OF LEARNING TO SEE, ON THE PART OF PERSONS BORN BLIND, BUT ACQUIRING SIGHT THROUGH SURGICAL TREATMENT. ALSO SOME CRITICAL REMARKS.

I. THE CHESSELDEN CASE.

The following extracts are taken from the report published by Will. Chesselden in the "Philosophical Transactions for the Months of April, May, and June, 1728" (No. 402, London, pp. 447-450), or the "Philosophical Transactions from 1719 to 1733, abridged by J. Eames and J. Martyn" (vii, 3, pp. 491-493, London, 1734):

"Though we say of the gentleman that he was blind, as we do of all people who have ripe cataracts, yet they are never so blind from that cause but that they can discern day from night, and, for the most part, in a strong light distinguish black, white, and scarlet; but they can not perceive the shape of anything.... And thus it was with this young gentleman, who, though he knew these colors asunder in a good light, yet when he saw them after he was couched, the faint ideas he had of them before were not sufficient for him to know them by afterward, and therefore he did not think them the same which he had known before by those names....

"When he first saw, he was so far from making any judgment about distances, that he thought all objects whatever touched his eyes (as he expressed it) as what he felt did his skin, and thought no objects so agreeable as those which were smooth and regular. He knew not the shape of anything nor any one thing from another, however different in shape or magnitude; but upon being told what things were, whose form he before knew from feeling, he would carefully observe, that he might know them again. But, having too many objects to learn at once, he forgot many of them, and (as he said) at first he learned to know and again forgot a thousand things in a day. Having often forgot which was the cat and which the dog, he was ashamed to ask; but catching the cat (which he knew by feeling), he was observed to look at her steadfastly, and then, setting her down, said, 'So, puss, I shall know you another time.' He was very much surprised that those things which he had liked best did not appear most agreeable to his eyes, expecting those persons would appear most beautiful that he loved most, and such things to be most agreeable to his sight that were so to his taste. We thought he soon knew what pictures represented which were showed to him, but we found afterward we were mistaken, for about two months after he was couched he discovered at once they represented solid bodies, when to that time he considered them only as party-colored planes or surfaces diversified with variety of paint; but even then he was no less surprised, expecting the pictures would feel like the things they represented, and was amazed when he found those parts, which by their light and shadow appeared now round and uneven, felt only flat like the rest, and asked which was the lying sense, feeling or seeing?

"Being shown his father's picture in a locket at his mother's watch and told what it was, he acknowledged a likeness, but was vastly surprised, asking how it could be that a large face could be expressed in so little room.

"At first he could bear but very little sight, and the things he saw he thought extremely large; but, upon seeing things larger, those first seen he conceived less, never being able to imagine any lines beyond the bounds he saw. The room he was in he said he knew to be but part of the house, yet he could not conceive that the whole house could look bigger. Before he was couched he expected little advantage from seeing, except reading and writing. Blindness, he observed, had this advantage, that he could go anywhere in the dark much better than those who could see, and after he had seen he did not soon lose this quality nor desire a light to go about the house in the night.

"A year after first seeing, being carried upon Epsom Downs and observing a large prospect, he was exceedingly delighted with it and called it a new kind of seeing; and now being lately couched of his other eye, he says that objects at first appeared large to this eye but not so large as they did at first to the other, and, looking upon the same object with both eyes, he thought it looked about twice as large as with the first couched eye only, but not double, that we can anywise discover."

Remark on the First Case.

Although this Chesselden case is the most famous of all, and the most frequently cited, it belongs, nevertheless, to those most inaccurately described. It is, however, not only the first in the order of time, but especially important for the reason that it demonstrates in a striking manner the slow acquirement of space-perception by the eye, and also the acquirement of the first and second dimensions of space (cf. vol. i, p. 57).

II., III. THE WARE CASES.

One of these cases is that of a boy, who at the age of seven years recovered his sight which he had lost in the first half-year of his life. The surgeon who performed the operation, James Ware, writes ("Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for 1801," ii, London, 1801, pp. 382-396):

"The young W. appeared to be a healthy, perfect child; his eyes in particular were large and rather prominent. About the end of his first year, a number of persons passing in procession near his father's house, accompanied with music and flags, the child was taken to see them; but, instead of looking at the procession, it was observed that, though he was evidently much pleased with the music, his eyes were never directed to the place from whence the sound came. His mother, alarmed by this discovery, held silver spoons and other glaring objects before him at different distances, and she was soon convinced that he was unable to perceive any of them. A surgeon was consulted, who, on examining the eyes, pronounced that there was a complete cataract in each. All thoughts of assisting his sight were (for the present) relinquished. As soon as he could speak it was observed that when an object was held close to his eyes he was able to distinguish its color if strongly marked, but on no occasion did he ever notice its outline or figure. I performed the operation on the left eye on the 29th of December, 1800. The eye was immediately bound up, and no inquiries made on that day with regard to his sight. On the 30th I found that he had experienced a slight sickness on the preceding evening. On the 31st, as soon as I entered his chamber, the mother with much joy informed me that her child could see. About an hour before my visit he was standing near the fire, with a handkerchief tied loosely over his eyes, when he told her that under the handkerchief, which had slipped upward, he could distinguish the table by the side of which she was sitting. It was about a yard and a half from him, and he observed that it was covered with a green cloth (which was really the case), and that it was a little farther off than he was able to reach.... Desirous to ascertain whether he was able to distinguish objects, I held a letter before him at the distance of about twelve inches, when he told me, after a short hesitation, that it was a piece of paper; that it was square, which he knew by its corners; and that it was longer in one direction than it was in the other. On being desired to point to the corners, he did it with great precision and readily carried his finger in the line of its longest diameter. I then showed him a small oblong bandbox covered with red leather, which he said was red and square, and pointed at once to its four corners. After this I placed before him an oval silver box, which he said had a shining appearance, and presently afterward that it was round, because it had not corners. A white stone mug he first called a white basin, but soon after, recollecting himself, said it was a mug because it had a handle. I held the objects at different distances from his eye and inquired very particularly if he was sensible of any difference in their situation, which he always said he was, informing me on every change whether they were brought nearer to or carried farther from him. I again inquired, both of his mother and himself, whether he had ever before this time distinguished by sight any sort of object, and I was assured by both that he never had on any occasion, and that when he wished to discover colors, which he could only do when they were very strong, he had always been obliged to hold the colored object close to his eye and a little on one side to avoid the projection of the nose. No further experiments were made on that day. On the 1st of January I found that he felt no uneasiness on the approach of light. I showed him a table-knife, which at first he called a spoon, but soon rectified the mistake, giving it the right name and distinguishing the blade from the handle by pointing to each as he was desired. He called a yellow pocket-book by its name, taking notice of the silver lock in the cover. I held my hand before him, which he knew, but could not at first tell the number of my fingers nor distinguish one of them from another. I then held up his own hand and desired him to remark the difference between his thumb and his fingers, after which he readily pointed out the distinctions in mine also. Dark-colored and smooth objects were more agreeable to him than those which were bright and rough. On the 3d of January he saw from the drawing-room window a dancing bear in the street and distinguished a number of boys that were standing round him, noticing particularly a bundle of clothes which one of them had on his head. On the same evening I placed him before a looking-glass and held up his hand. After a little time he smiled and said he saw the shadow of his hand as well as that of his head. He could not then distinguish his features; but on the following day, his mother having again placed him before the glass, he pointed to his eyes, nose, and mouth. The young W., a remarkably intelligent boy (of seven years), gave the most direct and satisfactory answers to every question that was put to him, and, though not born blind, certainly had not any recollection of having ever seen. The right eye was operated upon a month after the left, but without the least success."

In regard to the other case, Ware writes: "In the instance of a young gentleman from Ireland, fourteen years old, from each of whose eyes I extracted a cataract in the year 1794, and who, before the operation, assured me, as did his friends, that he had never seen the figure of any object, I was astonished by the facility with which, on the first experiment, he took hold of my hand at different distances, mentioning whether it was brought nearer to or carried farther from him, and conveying his hand to mine in a circular direction, that we [Ware and another physician] might be the better satisfied of the accuracy with which he did it." In this case, as in others of like nature, Ware could not, "although the patients had certainly been blind from early infancy," satisfy himself "that they had not, before this period, enjoyed a sufficient degree of sight to impress the image of visible objects on their minds, and to give them ideas which could not afterward be entirely obliterated."

Ware found, moreover, that, in the case of two children between seven and eight years of age, both blind from birth, and on whom no operation had been performed, the knowledge of colors, limited as it was, was sufficient to enable them to tell whether colored objects were brought nearer to or carried farther from them; for instance, whether they were at the distance of two inches or four inches from their eyes; and he himself observes that they were not, in strictness of speech, blind, though they were deprived of all useful sight.

Remarks on the Second and Third Cases.

It is a surprising thing, in the account of the former case, that nothing whatever is said of the behavior of the patient on the first and on the fourth day after the operation. We must assume that he passed the first day wholly with his eyes bandaged. Further, the boy pointed out four corners of a box, while the box had eight; yet no inference can be drawn from this, for possibly only one side of the box was shown to him. The most remarkable thing is the statement of the patient that he saw the shadow of his hand in the glass. This circumstance, and the astonishing certainty, at the very first attempts to estimate space-relations, in the discrimination of round and angular, and in the observation that the table was somewhat farther from him than he could reach, show what influence the mere ability to perceive colors has upon vision in space. Before the operation, W. distinguished only striking colors from one another; but he could perceive nearness and distance of colored objects, within narrow limits, by the great differences in the luminous intensity of the colors. He distinguished with certainty dimness from brightness. Accordingly, when he noticed a decrease in the brightness of a color, he inferred the distance of the colored object from the eye, regulating his judgment also by touch. Thus the boy had, before the operation, some perception of space with the eye, and it is not much to be wondered at, considering his uncommon intelligence, that he, soon after the operation (probably attempts at seeing were secretly made by the patient on the first day) learned to judge pretty surely of space-relations—much more surely than a person born blind learns to judge in so short a time. Besides, it is not to be forgotten that, while it is true that the cataract had become completely developed at the end of the first year of life, there is no proof that the child was unable to see during the first months. At that time images, as in the second case, may have unconsciously impressed themselves, with which, at a later period, more accurate space-ideas may have been associated, through the sense of touch, than is the case with persons born completely blind. Ware concludes, from his observations—

1. "When children are born blind, in consequence of having cataracts in their eyes, they are never so totally deprived of sight as not to be able to distinguish colors; and, though they can not see the figure of an object, nor even its color, unless it be placed within a very short distance, they nevertheless can tell whether, when within this distance, it be brought nearer to or carried farther from them.

2. "In consequence of this power, whilst in a state of comparative blindness, children who have their cataracts removed are enabled immediately on the acquisition of sight to form some judgment of the distance, and even of the outline, of those strongly defined objects with the color of which they were previously acquainted."

Both these conclusions are simply matter of fact. It only needs explanation how the distance and outlines of objects can be known after the operation in consequence of the ability described in the first proposition. That distance is actually estimated at once in consequence of this power, is clear; not so with the outlines. How can round and angular be distinguished, when only colors and gross differences of intensity and saturation are perceived? Ware gives no solution of the difficulty, but thinks that, because the colors appeared more intense, the previously imperfect ideas concerning distances might be improved and extended, so that they would even give a knowledge of the boundary-lines and of the form of those things with the color of which the patients were previously acquainted. But this improvement of the ideas concerning distance can not lead directly to discrimination of the limits of objects, and is itself hypothetical, inasmuch as we might expect, immediately after the operation, on account of the enormous difference in the luminous intensity, an uncertainty in the judgment. But such uncertainty appeared only in a slight degree in both the cases, a thing possible only because there had already been sufficient experiences with the eye. But these experiences, as is frequently stated, were absolutely lacking in regard to the limits and the form of objects. Here another thing comes in to help. Evidently, an eye that distinguishes only colors sees these colors always only as limited; even if it saw only a single color that occupied the whole field of vision, the field would still be a limited one. But the colored field may be small or large, and this difference may be noticed before the operation. If the object—one of vivid coloring—is long and narrow, the patient, even before the operation, will see it otherwise than if it is, with the same coloring, short and broad. And suppose he merely observes that not the whole field of vision is colored. If the whole field is colored, there is, of course, an entire lack of angles; on the other hand, if the whole field of vision is not filled by the colored object, then it is—however faintly—divided, and the lines of division, i. e., the indistinct boundary-lines of the objects whose color is perceived, may be either like the natural limits of the entire field of vision, i. e., "round," or unlike them, i. e., "angular." If, now, the obstacle is suddenly removed, the patient (even if he did not before the operation distinguish angular and round by the eye) must yet perceive which of the objects before him resemble in contour the previous field of vision, i. e., are round, and which do not; for the round contour of his field of vision is familiar to him. But W. had learned, through the sense of touch, that what is not round is angular. He would, therefore, even if he could perceive colors when the whole field of vision was filled—a matter on which we have no information—be able to guess the outlines of some objects soon after the operation, merely on the ground of his experiences before it. It was guess-work every time, as appears from the confounding of knife and spoon, mug and basin. The boy must have thought, "How would it be if I felt of it?" and, as he had before the operation frequently observed that whatever had the same contour as his field of vision, or a contour similar to that, was round, he could, after the operation, distinguish round and not round—a thing which a person born blind, on the other hand, and knowing nothing of his field of vision, because he has never had any, can never do.

On the whole, the two Ware cases are by no means so important as the Franz (see below) and Chesselden cases, because the boy, W., had ample opportunity up to his seventh year for learning to distinguish different colors according to their quality and luminous intensity; because he must have known the limits of his field of vision, and could in any case, by means of touch, correct and relatively confirm his very frequent attempts to guess at forms and distances by the eye. Finally, it is not known whether he became blind before or immediately after his birth, or, as is most probable, not till some months after birth. The same is true of the second case.

IV, V. THE HOME CASES.

Everard Home makes the following statement in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society," London, 1807, i, pp. 83-87, 91:

"1. William Stiff, twelve years of age, had cataracts in his eyes, which, according to the account of his mother, existed at the time of birth. From earliest infancy he never stretched out his hand to catch at anything, nor were his eyes directed to objects placed before him, but rolled about in a very unusual manner. The eyes were not examined till he was six months old, and at that time the cataracts were as distinct as when he was received into the hospital. He could at that time (July 17, 1806) distinguish light from darkness, and the light of the sun from that of a fire or candle; he said it was redder and more pleasant to look at, but lightning made a still stronger impression on his eyes. All these different lights he called red. The sun appeared to him the size of his hat. The candle-flame was larger than his finger and smaller than his arm. When he looked at the sun, he said it appeared to touch his eye. When a lighted candle was placed before him, both his eyes were directed toward it, and moved together. When it was at any nearer distance than twelve inches, he said it touched his eyes. When moved farther off he said it did not touch them, and at twenty-two inches it became invisible.

"On the 21st of July the operation of extracting the crystalline lens was performed on the left eye. Light became very distressing to his eye. After allowing the eyelids to remain closed for a few minutes, and then opening them, the pupil appeared clear, but he could not bear exposure to light. On my asking him what he had seen, he said, 'Your head, which seemed to touch my eye,' but he could not tell its shape. On the 22d the light was less offensive. He said he saw my head, which touched his eye. On the 23d the eye was less inflamed, and he could bear a weak light. He said he could see several gentlemen round him, but could not describe their figure. My face, while I was looking at his eye, he said was round and red. From the 25th of July to the 1st of August there was inflammation. On the 4th of August an attempt was made to ascertain the powers of vision; it became necessary to shade the glare of light by hanging a white cloth before the window. The least exertion fatigued the eye, and the cicatrix on the cornea, to which the iris had become attached, drew it down so as considerably to diminish the pupil. The attempt had therefore to be postponed.

"On the 16th of September the right eye was couched. The light was so distressing to his eye that the lids were closed as soon as it was over. The eyes were not examined with respect to their vision till the 13th of October; the boy remained quiet in the hospital. On this day he could discern a white, red, or yellow color, particularly when bright and shining. The sun and other objects did not now seem to touch his eyes as before, they appeared to be at a short distance from him. The right eye had the most distinct vision, but in both it was imperfect. The distance at which he saw best was five inches. When the object was of a bright color, and illuminated by a strong light, he could make out that it was flat and broad; and when one corner of a square substance was pointed out to him, he saw it, and could find out the other, which was at the end of the same side, but could not do this under less favorable circumstances. When the four corners of a white card were pointed out, and he had examined them, he seemed to know them; but when the opposite surface of the same card, which was yellow, was placed before him, he could not tell whether it had corners or not, so that he had not acquired any correct knowledge of them, since he could not apply it to the next colored surface, whose form was exactly the same with that, the outline of which the eye had just been taught to trace....

"2. John Salter, seven years of age, was admitted into St. George's Hospital on the 1st of October, 1806, with cataracts in both eyes, which, according to the accounts of his relations, had existed from his birth. The pupils contracted considerably when a lighted candle was placed before him, and dilated as soon as it was withdrawn. He was capable of distinguishing colors with tolerable accuracy, particularly the more bright and vivid ones. On the 6th of October the left eye was couched. The eye was allowed ten minutes to recover itself; a round piece of card, of a yellow color, one inch in diameter, was then placed about six inches from it. He said immediately that it was yellow, and, on being asked its shape, said, 'Let me touch it, and I will tell you.' Being told that he must not touch it, after looking for some time, he said it was round. A square, blue card, nearly the same size, being put before him, he said it was blue and round. A triangular piece he also called round. The different colors of the objects placed before him he instantly decided on with great correctness, but had no idea of their form. He saw best at a distance of six or seven inches. He was asked whether the object seemed to touch his eye; he said, 'No,' but when desired to say at what distance it was, he could not tell. The eye was covered, and he was put to bed and told to keep himself quiet; but upon the house-surgeon going to him half an hour afterward, his eye was found uncovered, and he was looking at his bed-curtains, which were close drawn. The bandage was replaced, but so delighted was the boy with seeing, that he again immediately removed it. The house-surgeon could not enforce his instructions, and repeated the experiment about two hours after the operation. Upon being shown a square, and asked if he could find any corners to it, the boy 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 afterward, when a triangle was shown 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 he went along. Next day 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 muskets, he must in his mind have connected them with the sounds which he heard, and mistaken them for musical instruments. Twenty-four hours after the operation the pupil of the eye was clear. A pair of scissors was shown 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 delighted with the discovery.

"From this time he was constantly improving himself by looking at, and examining with his hands, everything within his reach, but he frequently forgot what he had learned. On the 10th I saw him again. He went to the window and called out, 'What is that moving?' I asked him what he thought it was. He said: 'A dog drawing a wheelbarrow. There is one, two, three dogs drawing another. How very pretty!' These proved to be carts and horses on the road, which he saw from a two-pair-of-stairs window.

"On the 19th the different colored pieces of card were separately placed before his eye, and so little had he gained in thirteen days that he could not, without counting their corners one by one, tell their shape. This he did with great facility, running his eye quickly along the outline, so that it was evident he was still learning, just as a child learns to read. He had got so far as to know the angles, when they were placed before him, and to count the number belonging to any one object. The reason of his making so slow a progress was, that these figures had never been subjected to examination by touch, and were unlike anything he had been accustomed to see. He had got so much the habit of assisting his eyes with his hands, that nothing but holding them could keep them from the object.

"On the 26th the experiments were again repeated on the couched eye. It was now found that the boy, on looking at any one of the cards in a good light, could tell the form nearly as readily as the color."

From these two instructive cases Home concludes:

"That, where the eye, before the cataract is removed, has only been capable of discerning light, without being able to distinguish colors, objects after its removal will seem to touch the eye, and there will be no knowledge of their outline, which confirms the observations made by Chesselden.

"That where the eye has previously distinguished colors, there must also be an imperfect knowledge of distances, but not of outline, which, however, will be very soon acquired, as happened in Ware's cases. This is proved by the history of the first boy, who, before the operation had no knowledge of colors or distances, but after it, when his eye had only arrived at the same state that the second boy's was in before the operation, he had learned that the objects were at a distance and of different colors.

"That when a child has acquired a new sense, nothing but great pain or absolute coercion will prevent him from making use of it."

VI. THE WARDROP CASE.

James Wardrop reports ("Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for 1826," iii, 529-540, London, 1826):

"A girl who was observed, during the first months of her infancy, to have something peculiar in the appearance of her eyes and an unusual groping manner which made her parents suspect that she had defective vision, had an operation performed on both eyes at the age of about six months. The right eye was entirely destroyed in consequence. The left eye was preserved, but the child could only distinguish a very light from a very dark room without having the power to perceive even the situation of the window through which the light entered, though in sunshine or in bright moonlight she knew the direction from which the light emanated. In this case no light could reach the retina except such rays as could pass through the substance of the iris. Until her forty-sixth year the patient could not perceive objects and had no notion of colors. On the 26th of January I introduced a very small needle through the cornea and the center of the iris; but I could not destroy any of the adhesions which had shut up the pupillar opening. After this operation she said she could distinguish more light, but she could perceive neither forms nor colors. On the 8th of February the iris (a portion of it) was divided. The light became offensive to her. She complained of its brightness, and was frequently observed trying to see her hands; but it was evident that her vision was very imperfect, for, although there was an incision made in the iris, some opaque matter lay behind the opening, which must have greatly obstructed the entrance of light.

"On the 17th of February a third operation. The opening was enlarged and the opaque matter removed. The operation being performed at my house, she returned home in a carriage, with her eye covered only with a loose piece of silk, and the first thing she noticed was a hackney-coach passing, when she exclaimed, 'What is that large thing that has passed by us?' In the course of the evening she requested her brother to show her his watch, concerning which she expressed much curiosity, and she looked at it a considerable time, holding it close to her eye. She was asked what she saw, and she said there was a dark and a bright side; she pointed to the hour of twelve, and smiled. Her brother asked her if she saw anything more. She replied, 'Yes,' and pointed to the hour of six and to the hands of the watch. She then looked at the chain and seals, and observed that one of the seals was bright, which was the case. The following day I asked her to look again at the watch, which she refused to do, saying that the light was offensive to her eye and that she felt very stupid, meaning that she was much confused by the visible world thus for the first time opened to her.

"On the third day she observed the doors on the opposite side of the street and asked if they were red, but they were, in fact, of an oak-color. In the evening she looked at her brother's face and said that she saw his nose. He asked her to touch it, which she did. He then slipped a handkerchief over his face and asked her to look again, when she playfully pulled it off and asked, 'What is that?'

"On the sixth day she told us that she saw better than she had done on any preceding day; 'but I can not tell what I do see. I am quite stupid.' She felt disappointed in not having the power of distinguishing at once by her eye objects which she could so readily distinguish from one another by feeling them.

"On the seventh day she observed that the mistress of the house was tall. She asked what the color of her gown was, to which she was answered that it was blue. 'So is that thing on your head,' she then observed, which was the case; 'and your handkerchief, that is a different color,' which was also correct. She added, 'I see you pretty well, I think.' The teacups and saucers underwent an examination. 'What are they like?' her brother asked her. 'I don't know,' she replied, 'they look very queer to me, but I can tell what they are in a minute when I touch them.' She distinguished an orange, but could form no notion of what it was till she touched it. She seemed now to have become more cheerful, and she was very sanguine that she would find her newly acquired faculty of more use to her when she returned home, where everything was familiar to her.

"On the eighth day she asked her brother 'what he was helping himself to?' and when she was told it was a glass of port wine, she replied, 'Port wine is dark, and looks to me very ugly.' She observed, when candles were brought into the room, her brother's face in the mirror as well as that of a lady who was present; she also walked for the first time without assistance from her chair to a sofa which was on the opposite side of the room and back again to the chair. When at tea she took notice of the tray, observed the shining of the japan-work, and asked 'what the color was round the edge?' she was told that it was yellow, upon which she remarked, 'I will know that again.'

"On the ninth day she came down-stairs to breakfast in great spirits. She said to her brother, 'I see you very well to-day,' and came up to him and shook hands. She also observed a ticket on a window of a house on the opposite side of the street ('a lodging to let'), and her brother, to convince himself of her seeing it, took her to the window three separate times, and to his surprise and gratification she pointed it out to him distinctly on each trial.

"She spent a great part of the eleventh day looking out of the window, and spoke very little.

"On the twelfth day she went to walk with her brother. The clear blue sky first attracted her notice, and she said, 'It is the prettiest thing I have ever seen yet, and equally pretty every time I turn round and look at it.' She distinguished the street from the foot-pavement distinctly, and stepped from one to the other like a person accustomed to the use of her eyes. Her great curiosity, and the manner in which she stared at the variety of objects and pointed to them, exciting the observation of many by-standers, her brother soon conducted her home, much against her will.

"On the evening of the thirteenth day she observed that there was a different tea-tray, and that it was not a pretty one, but had a dark border, which was a correct description. Her brother asked her to look in the mirror and tell him if she saw his face in it, to which she answered, evidently disconcerted: 'I see my own; let me go away.'

"On the fourteenth day she drove in a carriage four miles, and noticed the trees, and likewise the river Thames as she crossed Vauxhall Bridge. At this time it was bright sunshine, and she said something dazzled her when she looked on the water.

"On the fifteenth day she walked to a chapel. The people passing on the pavement startled her, and once when a gentleman was going past her who had a white waistcoat and a blue coat with yellow buttons, which the sunshine brought full in her view, she started so as to draw her brother, who was walking with her, off the pavement. She distinguished the clergyman moving his hands in the pulpit, and observed that he held something in them. This was a white handkerchief.

"On the sixteenth day she went in a coach through the town, and appeared much entertained with the bustle in the streets. On asking her how she saw on that day, she answered: 'I see a great deal, if I could only tell what I do see; but surely I am very stupid.'

"On the seventeenth day, when her brother asked her how she was, she replied: 'I am well, and see better; but don't tease me with too many questions till I have learned a little better how to make use of my eye. All that I can say is, that I am sure, from what I do see, a great change has taken place, but I can not describe what I feel.'

"On the eighteenth day, when pieces of paper one inch and a half square, differently colored, were presented to her, she not only distinguished them at once from one another, but gave a decided preference to some colors, liking yellow most, and then pale pink. When desirous of examining an object, she had considerable difficulty in directing her eye to it and finding out its position, moving her hand as well as her eye in various directions, as a person when blindfolded or in the dark gropes with his hands for what he wishes to touch. She also distinguished a large from a small object when they were both held up before her for comparison. She said she saw different forms in various objects which were shown to her. On asking what she meant by different forms, such as long, round, and square, and desiring her to draw with her finger these forms on her other hand, and then presenting to her eye the respective forms, she pointed to them exactly; she not only distinguished small from large objects, but knew what was meant by above and below. A figure, drawn with ink, was placed before her eye, having one end broad and the other narrow, and she saw the positions as they really were, and not inverted.

"She could also perceive motions, for, when a glass of water was placed on the table before her, on approaching her hand near it, it was moved quickly to a greater distance, upon which she immediately said: 'You move it; you take it away.'

"She seemed to have the greatest difficulty in finding out the distance of any object; for, when an object was held close to her eye, she would search for it by stretching her hand far beyond its position, while on other occasions she groped close to her own face for a thing far removed from her.

"She learned with facility the names of the different colors, and two days after the colored papers had been shown to her, on coming into a room the color of which was crimson, she observed that it was red. She also observed some pictures hanging on the red wall of the room in which she was sitting, distinguishing several small figures in them, but not knowing what they represented, and admiring the gilt frames. On the same day she walked round a pond, and was pleased with the glistening of the sun's rays on the water, as well as with the blue sky and green shrubs, the colors of which she named correctly.

"She had as yet acquired, by the use of her sight, but very little knowledge of any forms, and was unable to apply the information gained by this new sense, and to compare it with what she had been accustomed to acquire by her sense of touch. When, therefore, a silver pencil-case and a large key were given her to examine with her hands, she discriminated and knew each distinctly; but when they were placed on the table, side by side, though she distinguished each with her eye, yet she could not tell which was the pencil-case and which was the key.

"On the twenty-fifth day after the operation she drove in a carriage for an hour in the Regent's Park, and asked more questions, on her way there, than usual, about the objects surrounding her, such as, 'What is that?' 'It is a soldier,' she was answered. 'And that? See, see!' These were candles of various colors in a tallow-chandler's window. 'Who is that that has passed us just now?' It was a person on horseback. 'But what is that on the pavement, red?' It was some ladies who wore red shawls. On going into the park she was asked if she could guess what any of the objects were. 'Oh, yes,' she replied, 'there is the sky; that is the grass; yonder is water, and two white things,' which were two swans.

"When she left London, forty-two days after the operation, she had acquired a pretty accurate notion of colors and their different shades and names. She had not yet acquired anything like an accurate knowledge of distance or of forms, and, up to this period, she continued to be very much confused with every new object at which she looked. Neither was she yet able, without considerable difficulty and numerous fruitless trials, to direct her eye to an object; so that, when she attempted to look at anything, she turned her head in various directions, until her eye caught the object of which it was in search."

Remarks on the Sixth Case.

This case has been adduced as a proof that the sense of sight is sufficient, without aid from the sense of touch, to perceive whether an object is brought nearer the eye or carried farther from it. But John Stuart Mill rightly observes, in opposition to this ("Dissertations and Discussions," ii, 113; London, 1859), that the observation we are concerned with was not made "till the eighteenth day after the operation, by which time a middle-aged woman might well have acquired the experience necessary for distinguishing so simple a phenomenon." Besides, she was very uncertain in her judgment of distances, and, in her attempts to seize with the hand new and distant objects, she frequently acted exactly like an infant.

VII. THE FRANZ CASE.

J. C. A. Franz, of Leipsic, communicates the following to the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society" (by Sir Benjamin C. Brodie), (London, 1841; i, pp. 59-69):

"F. J. is the son of a physician. He is endowed with an excellent understanding, quick power of conception, and retentive memory. At his birth, both eyes were found to be turned inward to such an extent that a portion of the cornea was hidden by the inner canthus, and in both pupils there was a yellowish-white discoloration. That the strabismus and cataract of both eyes in this case were congenital is evident from the testimony both of the parents and of the nurse. The latter held a light before the eyes of the child when he was a few months old, of which he took no notice. I ascertained also from her that the eyeballs did not move hither and thither, but were always turned inward, and that but rarely either the one or the other was moved from the internal canthus.

"Toward the end of the second year, as was stated to me, the operation of keratonyxis was performed on the right eye, upon which a severe iritis ensued, terminating in atrophy of the eyeball. Within the next four years two similar operations were performed on the left eye without success. The color of the opacity became, however, of a clearer white, and the patient acquired a certain sensation of light, which he did not seem to have had before the operation.

"At the end of June, 1840, the patient, being then seventeen years of age, was brought to me. I found the condition of things as follows: Both eyes were so much inverted that nearly one half the cornea was hidden. The left eye he could move voluntarily outward, but not without exertion; it returned immediately inward when the influence of the will had ceased. The left eyeball was of the natural size and elasticity. The patient had not the slightest perception of light with the right eye; the stimulus of light had no effect on the pupil. The pupil of the left eye, which was not round, but drawn angularly downward and inward, did not alter in dimension with the movements of the eye nor from the stimulus of light. On examining the eye by looking straight into it through the pupil, the anterior wall of the capsule appeared opaque in its whole extent, and of a color and luster like mother-of-pearl. On looking from the temporal side in an oblique direction into the pupil, there was visible in the anterior wall of the capsule a very small perpendicular cleft of about one line and a quarter in length.

"This cleft was situated so far from the center of the pupil that it was entirely covered by the iris. With this eye the patient had a perception of light, and was even capable of perceiving colors of an intense and decided tone. He believed himself, moreover, able to perceive about one third of a square inch of any bright object, if held at the distance of half an inch or an inch from the eye, and obliquely in such a direction as to reflect the light strongly toward the pupil. But this, I am convinced, was a mere delusion, for all rays of light falling in the direction of the optic axis must have been intercepted and reflected by the opaque capsule. By these rays, therefore, a perception of light, indeed, might be conveyed, but certainly no perception of objects. On the other hand, it seems probable that the lateral cleft in the capsule permitted rays of light to pass into the interior of the eye. But as this small aperture was situated entirely behind the iris, those rays only would have permeated which came in a very oblique direction from the temporal side. Admitting, then, these rays of light to pass through the cleft, still on account of their obliquity they could produce but a very imperfect image, because they impinged upon an unfavorable portion of the retina. Moreover, I satisfied myself by experiments, that the patient could not in the least discern objects by sight. My experiments led me to the conclusion that his belief that he really saw objects resulted solely from his imagination combined with his power of reasoning. In feeling an object and bringing it in contact with the eyelids and the cheek, an idea of the object was produced, which was judged of and corrected according to the experience he had gained by constant practice.

"The patient's sense of touch had attained an extraordinary degree of perfection. In order to examine an object minutely he conveyed it to his lips.

"On the 10th of July, 1840, I performed an operation on the left eye. The light was so painful to him that I could not try any experiments immediately after the operation. Both eyes were closed with narrow strips of court-plaster, and treated with iced water for forty-eight hours. The patient suffered from muscae volitantes, and could not bear even a mild degree of light falling on the closed lids. After the lapse of a few weeks, the muscae volitantes were greatly mitigated, and the intolerance of light ceased.

"On opening the eye for the first time on the third day after the operation, I asked the patient what he could see; he answered that he saw an extensive field of light, in which everything appeared dull, confused, and in motion. He could not distinguish objects. The pain produced by the light forced him to close the eye immediately.

"Two days afterward the eye, which had been kept closed by means of court-plaster, was again opened. He now described what he saw as a number of opaque watery spheres, which moved with the movements of the eye, but when the eye was at rest remained stationary, and then partly covered each other. Two days after this the eye was again opened. The same phenomena were again observed, but the spheres were less opaque and somewhat transparent; their movements more steady; they appeared to cover each other more than before. He was now for the first time able, as he said, to look through the spheres, and to perceive a difference, but merely a difference, in the surrounding objects. When he directed his eye steadily toward an object, the visual impression produced by the object was painful and very imperfect, because the eye, on account of its intolerance of light, could not be kept open long enough for the formation of the idea as derived from visual sensation. The appearance of spheres diminished daily; they became smaller, clearer, and more pellucid, allowed objects to be seen more distinctly, and disappeared entirely after two weeks. The muscae volitantes, which had the form of black, immovable, and horizontal stripes, appeared, every time the eye was opened, in a direction upward and inward. When the eye was closed he observed, especially in the evening, in an outward and upward direction, an appearance of dark blue, violet, and red colors; these colors became gradually less intense, were shaded into bright orange, yellow, and green, which latter colors alone eventually remained, and in the course of five weeks disappeared entirely. As soon as the intolerance of light had so far abated that the patient could observe an object without pain, and for a sufficient time to gain an idea of it, the following experiments were made on different days.

"First Experiment.—Silk ribbons of different colors, fastened on a black ground, were employed to show the complementary colors. The patient recognized the different colors, with the exception of yellow and green, which he frequently confounded, but could distinguish when both were exhibited at the same time. He could point out each color correctly when a variety was shown him at the same time. Gray pleased him best; the effect of red, orange, and yellow was painful; that of violet and brown not painful, but disagreeable. Black produced subjective colors, and white occasioned the recurrence of muscae volitantes in a most vehement degree.

"Second Experiment.—The patient sat with his back to the light, and kept his eye closed. A sheet of paper on which two strong black lines had been drawn, the one horizontal, the other vertical, was placed before him, at the distance of about three feet. He was now allowed to open the eye, and after attentive examination he called the lines by their right denominations. When I asked him to point out with his finger the horizontal line, he moved his hand slowly, as if feeling, and pointed to the vertical; but after a short time, observing his error, he corrected himself. The outline in black of a square [six inches in diameter], within which a circle had been drawn, and within the latter a triangle, was, after careful examination, recognized and correctly described by him. When he was asked to point out either of the figures, he never moved his hand directly and decidedly, but always as if feeling, and with the greatest caution; he pointed them out, however, correctly. A zigzag and a spiral line, both drawn on a sheet of paper, he observed to be different, but could not describe them otherwise than by imitating their forms with his finger in the air. He said he had no idea of those figures.

"Third Experiment.—The windows of the room were darkened, with the exception of one, toward which the patient, closing his eye, turned his back. At the distance of three feet, and on a level with the eye, a solid cube and a sphere, each of four inches diameter, were placed before him. I now let him open his eye. After attentively examining these bodies, he said he saw a quadrangular and a circular figure, and after some consideration he pronounced the one a square and the other a disk. His eye being then closed, the cube was taken away, and a disk of equal size substituted and placed next to the sphere. On again opening his eye he observed no difference in these objects, but regarded them both as disks. The solid cube was now placed in a somewhat oblique position before the eye, and close beside it a figure cut out of pasteboard, representing a plane outline prospect of the cube when in this position. Both objects he took to be something like flat quadrates. A pyramid, placed before him with one of its sides toward his eye, he saw as a plane triangle. This object was now turned a little, so as to present two of its sides to view, but rather more of one side than of the other; after considering and examining it for a long time, he said that this was a very extraordinary figure; it was neither a triangle, nor a quadrangle, nor a circle; he had no idea of it, and could not describe it. 'In fact,' said he, 'I must give it up.' On the conclusion of these experiments I asked him to describe the sensations the objects had produced, whereupon he said that immediately on opening his eye he had discovered a difference in the two objects, the cube and the sphere, placed before him, and perceived that they were not drawings; but that he had not been able to form from them the idea of a square and a disk, until he perceived a sensation of what he saw in the points of his fingers, as if he really touched the objects. When I gave the three bodies, the sphere, cube, and pyramid, into his hand, he was much surprised that he had not recognized them as such by sight, as he was well acquainted with them by touch. These experiments prove the correctness of the hypothesis I have advanced elsewhere on the well-known question put by Mr. Molyneux to Locke, which was answered by both these gentlemen in the negative.

"Fourth Experiment.—In a vessel containing water to about the depth of one foot was placed a musket-ball, and on the surface of the water a piece of pasteboard of the same form, size, and color as the ball. The patient could perceive no difference in the position of these bodies; he believed both to be upon the surface of the water. Pointing to the ball, I desired him to take up this object. He made an attempt to take it from the plane of the water; but, when he found he could not grasp it there, he said he had deceived himself, the objects were lying in the water, upon which I informed him of their real position. I now desired him to touch the ball which lay in the water with a small rod. He attempted this several times, but always missed his aim. He could never touch the object at the first movement of his hand toward it, but only by feeling about with the rod. On being questioned with respect to reflected light, he said that he was always obliged to bear in mind that the looking-glass was fastened to the wall in order to correct his idea of the apparent situation of objects behind the glass.

"When the patient first acquired the faculty of sight, all objects appeared to him so near that he was sometimes afraid of coming in contact with them, though they were in reality at a great distance from him. He saw everything much larger than he had supposed from the idea obtained by his sense of touch. Moving and especially living objects, such as men, horses, etc., appeared to him very large. If he wished to form an estimate of the distance of objects from his own person or of two objects from each other without moving from his place, he examined the objects from different points of view by turning his head to the right and to the left. Of perspective in pictures he had, of course, no idea; it appeared to him unnatural that the figure of a man represented in the front of a picture should be larger than a house or mountain in the background. All objects appeared to him perfectly flat. Thus, although he very well knew by his touch that the nose was prominent and the eyes sunk deeper in the head, he saw the human face only as a plane. Though he possessed an excellent memory, this faculty was at first quite deficient as regarded visible objects: he was not able, for example, to recognize visitors, unless he heard them speak, till he had seen them very frequently. Even when he had seen an object repeatedly he could form no idea of its visible qualities without having the real object before him. Heretofore when he dreamed of any persons, of his parents, for instance, he felt them and heard their voices, but never saw them; but now, after having seen them frequently, he saw them also in his dreams. The human face pleased him more than any other object. Although the newly-acquired sense afforded him many pleasures, the great number of strange and extraordinary sights was often disagreeable and wearisome to him. He said that he saw too much novelty which he could not comprehend; and, even though he could see both near and remote objects very well, he would nevertheless continually have recourse to the use of the sense of touch."

Final Remarks.

To the seven reports upon cases of persons born blind and afterward surgically treated, which are here presented in abridged form from the English originals, may be added some more recent and more accessible ones, one by Hirschberg ("Archiv fuer Opthalmologie," xxi, 1. Abth., S. 29 bis 42, 1875), one by A. von Hippel (ibid., xxi, 2. Abth., S. 101), and one by Dufour ("Archives des Sciences physiques et naturelles," lviii, No. 242, April, 1877, p. 420). The cases reported here are those most discussed. I have given them considerably in detail in order that the reader may form an independent judgment concerning the behavior of persons born blind and then operated upon, as that behavior is described before the modern physiological controversy over empiricism and nativism. Helmholtz ("Physiologische Optik," Sec. 28) mentions, besides those of Chesselden and Wardrop and Ware, which he gives in abridged form, some other cases also. Others still may be found in Froriep's "Notizen" (xi, p. 177, 1825, and iv, p. 243, 1837, also xxi, p. 41, 1842), partly reported, partly cited (the latter according to Franz).

In addition to the cases here given of persons born blind and then surgically treated—persons not able to see things in space-relations before becoming blind—one more case is to be mentioned; it is that of a girl who in her seventh year (probably in consequence of the effect of dazzling sunlight) lost her sight completely, but recovered it again at the age of seventeen years after being treated with electricity. She had to begin absolutely anew to learn to name colors like a child; all measure of distance, perspective, size, had been lost for her by lack of practice (as O. Heyfelder relates in his work "Die Kindheit des Menschen," second edition, Erlangen, 1858, pp. 12-15). He says, p. 12, that the patient had been eight years blind; p. 13, that she had been ten years so. Such cases prove the great influence of experience upon vision in space, and show how little of this vision is inborn in mankind.

When we compare the acquirement of sight by the normal newly-born child and the infant with that of those born blind, we should, above all, bear in mind that the latter in general could make use of only one eye, and also that on account of the long inactivity of the retina and the absence of the crystalline lens, as well as in consequence of the numerous experiences of touch, essential differences exist. Notwithstanding this, there appears an agreement in the manner in which in both cases vision is learned, the eye is practiced, and the association of sight and touch is acquired. The seventh case in particular shows plainly how strong the analogies are.

These cases are sufficient to refute some singular assertions, e. g., that all the newly-born must see objects reversed, as even a Buffon ("Oeuvres completes," iv, 136; Paris, 1844) thought to be the fact. My boy, when I had him write, in his fifth year, the ordinary figures after a copy that I set for him, imitated the most of them, to my surprise, always in a reversed hand (Spiegelschrift, "mirror-hand"); the 1 and the 4 he continued longest to write thus, though he often made the 4 the other way, too, whereas he always wrote the 5 correctly. This, however, was, of course, not owing to imperfect sight, but to incomplete transformation of the visual idea into the motor idea required for writing. Other boys, as I am given to understand, do the same thing. For myself, I found the distinction between "right" and "left" so difficult in my childhood, that I remember vividly the trouble I had with it.

Singularly enough, Buffon assumed, in 1749, that the neglect of the double images does not yet take place at the beginning of life. Johannes Mueller, in 1826, expresses the same view. But, inasmuch as in the first two or three weeks after the birth of a human being, in contrast with many animals, nothing at all can as yet be distinctly seen, it is not allowable to maintain that everything must be seen double. Rather is it true that everything is seen neither single nor double, since the very young child perceives, as yet, no forms (boundary-lines) and no distances, but merely receives impressions of light, precisely as is the case with the person born blind, in the period directly after an operation has been performed upon his eyes.

Schopenhauer (in his treatise on "Sight and Colors," first edition, Leipsic, 1816, p. 14) divined this truth. He says, "If a person who was looking out upon a wide and beautiful prospect could be in an instant wholly deprived of his intellect, then nothing of all the view would remain for him except the sensation of a very manifold reaction of his retina, which is, as it were, the raw material out of which his intellect created that view."

The new-born child has, as yet, no intellect, and therefore can not, as yet, at the beginning, see; he can merely have the sensation of light.

This opinion of mine, derived from observation of the behavior of newly-born and of very young infants (cf. the first chapter of this book), seems to me to be practically confirmed in an account given by Anselm von Feuerbach in his work on Kaspar Hauser (Anspach, 1832, p. 77).

"In the year 1828, soon after his arrival in Nuremberg, Kaspar Hauser was to look out at the window in the Vestner Tower, from which there was a view of a broad and many-colored summer landscape. Kaspar Hauser turned away; the sight was repugnant to him. At a later period, long after he had learned to speak, he gave, when questioned, the following explanation:

"'When I looked toward the window it always seemed to me as if a shutter had been put up close before my eyes, and that upon this shutter a colorer had wiped off his brushes of different colors, white, blue, green, yellow, and red, all in motley confusion. Individual things, as I now see them, I could not, at that time, perceive and distinguish upon it; it was absolutely hideous to look upon.'"

By this, as well as by the experiences with persons born blind and afterward surgically treated, it is clearly demonstrated that colors and degrees of brightness are severally apprehended before forms and distances can be perceived. The case must be the same with the normal human child in the first weeks after birth.

After discrimination of the luminous sensations, the boundary-lines of bright plane surfaces are next clearly discerned; then come forms, and, last of all, the distances of these.

With reference to this progress of the normal infant in learning to see, the accounts of persons born blind and afterward surgically treated are again of great value. After the famous question put by Molyneux to Locke, whether an intelligent person, blind from birth, would be able immediately after an operation to distinguish a sphere from a cube by means of the eye alone, had been answered in the negative, the opinion was accepted as satisfactory that such a person learns the distinction only by means of the sense of touch. Thus, the perception of difference would come later, after the sight of different forms, only by means of the tactual memory.

In truth, however, very many forms are discerned as different purely by means of the eye, without the possibility of aid from any other sense. Phenomena exclusively optical, which, like the rainbow, can not be apprehended by touch or by hearing, are distinctly perceived by the child at a very early period. Without touching, the different forms of objects would be perceived by means of sight alone, and that even by a child unable to touch, through movements of the eyes and head, changes of bodily position, of attitude and posture, and through practice in accommodation and in the observation of differences of brightness.

The fact correctly predicted by Molyneux, that those born blind but afterward surgically treated can not, by means of the eye alone, distinguish the form of a sphere from that of a cube, must accordingly be supplemented to this extent, viz., that such persons are capable, just as are normal children who can see, of learning this difference of form by means of the eye alone without the direct intervention of the sense of touch; for the co-ordination of the retinal excitations in space and time by means of the intellect, quite independently of all impressions from other departments of sense, is possible, and is in countless cases actual, just as is the learning of differences of form solely by means of the sense of touch in children who are born blind and never learn to see.

THE END.



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.

NEW VOLUMES IN THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES.

EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. By ALFRED FOUILLEE. Translated and edited, with a Preface, by W. J. GREENSTREET, M. A., St. John's College, Cambridge; Head Master of the Marling School, Stroud. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

Fouillee's work is a timely and valuable contribution to the discussions of some of the important educational questions that are at present claiming attention in both this country and Europe.

SYSTEMATIC SCIENCE TEACHING. A Manual of Inductive Elementary Work for all Instructors in Graded and Ungraded Schools, the Kindergarten, and the Home. By EDWARD GARDNIER HOWE. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

A thoroughly practical and reliable guide to elementary instruction in science has long been a desideratum, and this work, embodying the results of fourteen years of actual classroom tests, will satisfactorily meet such a demand. The volume gives a general outline of work for the first three years.

THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE, and its Influence on Civilization. By THOMAS DAVIDSON. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

"This work is not intended for scholars or specialists, but for that large body of teachers throughout the country who are trying to do their duty, but are suffering from that want of enthusiasm which necessarily comes from being unable clearly to see the end and purpose of their labors, or to invest any end with sublime import. I have sought to show them that the end of their work is the redemption of humanity, an essential part of that process by which it is being gradually elevated to moral freedom, and to suggest to them the direction in which they ought to turn their chief efforts. If I can make even a few of them feel the consecration that comes from single-minded devotion to a great end, I shall hold that this book has accomplished its purpose."—Author's Preface.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS PUBLIC-SCHOOL SYSTEM. A Historical Sketch in Six Lectures. By GEORGE H. MARTIN, A. M., Supervisor of Public Schools, Boston, Massachusetts. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

The public discussion that arose from Professor Martin's papers upon the topic treated in this work will make the complete collection of the essays of much interest to a large circle of readers. In the present volume the author aims to show the evolutionary character of the public-school history of the State, and to point out the lines along which the development has run and the relation throughout to the social environment, and incidentally to illustrate the slow and irregular way by which the people under popular governments work out their own social and intellectual progress.

THE PYGMIES. By A. DE QUATREFAGES, late Professor of Anthropology at the Museum of Natural History, Paris. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.

In this interesting volume the author has gathered the results of careful studies of the small black races of Africa, and he shows what the pygmies of antiquity really were. The peculiar intellectual, moral, and religious characteristics of these races are also described.

WOMAN'S SHARE IN PRIMITIVE CULTURE. By OTIS TUFTON MASON, A. M., Curator of the Department of Ethnology in the United States National Museum. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.

"A most interesting resume of the revelations which science has made concerning the habits of human beings in primitive times, and especially as to the place, the duties, and the customs of women."—Philadelphia Inquirer.

"Mr. Mason's volume secures for woman her glory as a civilizer in the past, and by no means denies her a glorious future."—New York Tribune.

SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF SCULPTURE. By A. G. RADCLIFFE, author of "Schools and Masters of Painting." With 35 full-page Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $3.00.

"The art lover will find in Miss Radcliffe's work a book of fascinating interest, and a thoroughly painstaking and valuable addition to the stock of knowledge which he may possess on the history of the noble art of sculpture."—Philadelphia Item.

"It would be difficult to name another work that would be so valuable to the general reader on the same subject as this book."—San Francisco Bulletin.

"The work is free of all needless technicalities, and will be of intense interest to every intelligent reader, while of inestimable value to the student of art."—Boston Home Journal.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. With numerous Illustrations and an Appendix on the Principal Galleries of Europe. New edition, fully revised, and in part rewritten. 12mo. Cloth, $3.00; half calf, $5.00.

"The volume is one of great practical utility, and may be used to advantage as an artistic guide-book by persons visiting the collections of Italy, France, and Germany for the first time."—New York Tribune.

THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION. (EGYPT AND CHALDAEA.) By Prof. MASPERO. Edited by the Rev. Prof. SAYCE. Translated by M. L. McCLURE. With Maps and over 470 Illustrations. Quarto. Cloth, $7.50.

"The most complete account of ancient Egypt ever published."—Chicago Herald.

"Professor Maspero's intimate acquaintance with Egypt and its literature, and the opportunities offered him by his position for several years as director of the Bulak Museum give him a unique claim to speak with authority on the history of the Nile Valley."—New York Sun.

POPULAR ASTRONOMY: A General Description of the Heavens. By CAMILLE FLAMMARION. Translated from the French by J. ELLARD GORE, F. R. A. S. With 3 Plates and 288 Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, $4.50.

"M. Flammarion has produced a work that charms while it interests. He has classified astronomy so perfectly that any person of ordinary intelligence may learn from this book practically all that the men in the observatories know."—New York Times.

"The fullest and most elaborate compendium of popular astronomy.... The book might reasonably be pronounced the most desirable of its kind."—New York Sun.

LIFE OF SIR RICHARD OWEN. By Rev. RICHARD OWEN. With an Introduction by T. H. HUXLEY. 2 vols. 12mo. Cloth, $7.50.

"The value of these memoirs is that they disclose with great minuteness the daily labors and occupations of one of the foremost men of science of England."—Boston Herald.

"A noteworthy contribution to biographical literature."—Philadelphia Press.

DEAN BUCKLAND. The Life and Correspondence of WILLIAM BUCKLAND, D. D., F. R. S., sometime Dean of Westminster, twice President of the Theological Society, and first President of the British Association. By his Daughter, Mrs. GORDON. With Portraits and Illustrations. 8vo. Buckram, $3.50.

"Next to Charles Darwin, Dean Buckland is certainly the most interesting personality in the field of natural science that the present century has produced."—London Daily News.

"A very readable book, for it gives an excellent account, without any padding or unnecessary detail, of a most original man."—Westminster Gazette.