Space And Sight Marius Von Senden Analysis

I happened upon a book by Marius von Senden called Space and Sight. When Western surgeons discovered the necessary steps to safely operate on cataracts, they travelled across Europe and America operating by the dozens. Von Senden collected accounts of such cases. The vast majority of patients had no sense of space whatsoever. A patient "had no idea of depth, confusing it with roundness" (Senden). Prior to operation, the patient would be given a cube and a sphere, and through whatever means necessary correctly name the two. After the operation the patient would be handed the two same objects, except with the sense of touch eliminated. Senden observed one patient called lemonade square because it touched his tongue as a square shape touched his
Take for example the human hand, one patient it as "something bright and then holes." A boy describes a bunch of grapes as dark blue and shiny. A little girl visits a garden, "She is greatly astonished, and can scarcely be persuaded to answer, she stands speechless in front of the tree, which she only names on taking hold of it, and then as the tree with the lights in it" (Senden). She did not recognize any objects, but, "the more she now directed her gaze upon everything about her, the more it could be seen how an expression of gratification and astonishment overspread her features; she repeatedly exclaimed: 'Oh God! How Beautiful!"
Then one day I was walking along Steven's Creek thinking of nothing, and I saw it. I saw the tree with the lights in it. I stood on the grass with the lights in it. It was less like seeing for the first time and more like being for the first time seen, caught off guard by a powerful glance. Gradually the lights went out, the colors unlit and disappeared, but I held onto the power, and I was ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until the moment I was lifted and shaken. The vision of the tree with the lights in it comes and mostly goes, but I live for it. For the brief moment when the mountains open, a new light seeps in through the crack, and the next moment they crash