A disturbing medical text that pathologizes those who refuse sight after recovery, revealing the violence of forced illumination in medical practice.

The Medical Gaze

Dr. Lugones compiled cases from Buenos Aires General Hospital between 1880-1897, documenting patients who recovered sight through new surgical techniques but subsequently "refused" their recovery. Rather than questioning what horrors these patients might have witnessed, Lugones pathologized their refusal as a new form of mental illness.

Notable Cases

Case 12: "Maria V., domestic servant, age 22. Sight restored after childhood cataracts removed. Within days, began wearing thick cloth over eyes. When forced to remove it, would only look at the ground. Diagnosed with 'hysterical blindness syndrome.'"

Case 31: "Indigenous man, name not recorded, approximate age 40. Traditional healing failed, European surgery succeeded. Patient immediately attempted to damage his own eyes. Restrained. Later found dead, eyes gouged out. Autopsy revealed 'savage tendencies.'"

Case 47: "European widow, age 55. Gradual sight loss reversed through new treatment. Patient claimed the world had become 'too sharp, too cruel.' Requested return to blindness. Committed to asylum for 'voluntary sensory rejection disorder.'"

The Colonial Context

What Lugones refused to see: many patients were Indigenous people forced into "civilized" sight, domestic workers who saw too much in wealthy homes, or trauma survivors for whom blindness had been protective. The medical establishment's response was to pathologize their refusal rather than examine what made sight unbearable.

Contemporary Manifestations

Biblioteca Ophthalmologica continues wherever:

  • Healing is forced rather than offered
  • Patient refusal is pathologized as illness
  • The medical gaze refuses to see its own violence
  • Recovery is defined by the powerful, not the patient
  • Protective blindness is treated as disorder

Emerged through Standard Protocol to reveal how even medicine's "gift" of sight can be violence when forced upon those who have learned darkness as shelter.