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, especial