Mr. Stiens, a Russian electrical engineer residing in this country,
is credited by the Daily News with claiming to be able to give artificial sight to the blind. The inventor's apparatus—full details concerning which are withheld beyond the statement that electricity is employed—constitutes a substitute for the lens of the eye, spectacles not being re- quired, and is to be so portable that a person can easily carry it about with him "for the ordinary practical purposes of life." By way of a practical proof Mr. Stiens effectually blindfolded the representative of the Daily News, a gentle. man with perfect eyesight, so that all was " absolute black- ness," and then by connecting him with the apparatus enabled him to see in a "clear and bright light" fingers held up and "a disc that looked like a coin." The experiment is hardly convincing, and in the absence of all particulars—the inventor has not yet applied for a patent—the claims of Mr. Stiens, who is also engaged on an electrical apparatus to restore hearing to the deaf, can only be accepted with considerable reserve. But it is not too much to say that if they are verified, the fame of Mr. Stiens will eclipse that of Mr. Edison and Dr. Röntgen.
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