Norwich bulletin., 1914-10-13
FINDING IN EAGEEvtLLE
 ACCIDENT CASE.
Total Blindness of One Eye Not
 Caused by Recent Aeeident.

A finding by Dr. J. J. Donohue, com pensation commissioner, has been hed in the case of Mary Nichols or Eagle vile, claimant, who was injured while employed by the Max Pollock company of Conantville.
 On the 21st of July Mary. Nichols, whose average weekly wage was con-. puted at S6.77, under the terms of the workmen's compensation act, stuck a. spindle into her left eye while stooping down to pick up a bobbin in the mill. This was the same eye which had received an injury some eight years previously. After this last injury the eye was subsequently removed by Dr. E. Terry Smith, an eye specialist os Hartford, Conn.
 The testimony of Mary Nichols, the claimant, before the commissioner, was substantially to the effect that previ- ous to the injury received by her on said 21st day of July, 1914, she could distinguish daylight from darkness with her left eye. or possibly the form object, although her testimony was not especially positive in this particular.
 The testimony of all the witnesses produced by the claimant was substan- tially of similar character.
 The testimony of the witnesses for the respondent was practically to the effect that (to use the words of one of the witnesses) the eye had white on the ball and looked as if there was no life to it whatever" In fact, all the testimony for the respondent was prac- tically of a contradictory nature to that offered by the claimant.
 The testimony of the claimant and her mother was injected with more or less levity, and did not present the appearance of there having been suf- fered any great loss or injury; in fact quite to the contrary, there seeming to be more or less of an appearance of satisfaction on having the eye re- moved.
 As a matter of fact, there is no part of her duties or work which cannot be performed equally as we'll, if not better, than there could be performed by the claimant before said injury. Even the strongest statements made | by the witnesses for the claimant (anJ they were witnesses naturally inter- | ested) would show that, in medical l terms, she had what would be consid | cred no useful vision," and there was 1 introduced an affidavit of Dr. D. Terry | Smith, and to use the words of Dr | Smith: She had lost the sight of the
 left eye ten years previously; since l that time the eye had been useless Two days before coming to me she had
 bene struck in the eye by a spindle | and since then had had soreness anl
 pain. Upon examination found a de. | generated blind eye, incapable of tell. ing light from darkness, and as it wa.
 useless, painful and disfiguring, I ad. I vised her to have it removed" Dr
 Smith further stated: '"The total blind | ness referred to and the inability o | Miss Nichols to distinguish light frou
 darkness was not g. recent condition | arising because of the accident whicl
 she sustained on or about the Fist da, of July, 1914, but was a condition
 which existed prior to the accident ol
 that date and was not due to the acci
 dent or caused thereby
 Therefore, considering the foregoin,
 facts and the testimony of the variou
 witnesses introduced at the hearing, i
 is found by Commissioner Donohue an,
 ordered and decreed that the respond
 ent pay to the claimant the sum 0
 five dollars ($5) per week, to continu
 during the period of disability, to
 gether with the medical, surgical an
 hospital bills for the first 30 days fol
 lowing the injury.