The First Experimental Data

Abstract

Age." 1 As the title indicates, Cheselden had performed a successful operation on a young man who, from birth or at least from a very young age, had suffered from cataract. For this Cheselden had performed two cataract operations: first he operated on one of the boy's eyes and then, a year later, on the other.: In his report Cheselden described the condition of the patient's eyes before the operation and he also gave a detailed description of what the boy could and could not see following surgery and how he reacted to his new visual impressions. As could have been anticipated, those interested in Molyneux's problem were extremely eager to find out the results of Cheselden's operation, since it promised to provide them with arguments that would settle the dispute raging between the various parties. As far as we can ascertain, Cheselden himself did not know of Molyneux's problem. He referred to neither Molyneux nor Locke (nor to other parties to the discussion) and he did not show his patient a sphere or a cube. 1William Cheselden (1688-1752) was famous not only for the cataract operation alluded to here but also for his "lateral operation for the stone" (an operation to remove kidney stone) (1727) which was attended by surgeons from the whole of Europe. Cheselden was the discoverer of the artificial pupil. He wrote two seminal works: The Anatomy of the Human Body (1713) and Osteographia, or Anatomy of the Bones (1733). The Anatomy is full of magnificent copperplate engravings produced using the camera obscura. See Cope 1953 and Hausmann 1989. 2The following section explains what a cataract operation is. 53