Olejar Books

The emergence of experimental studies of vision can be traced to the adoption of Newtonian methods of observation and experiment, and in their application to space perception by Wells (1792). His initial researches were concerned principally with binocular vision, but he also conducted experimental studies of accommodation, acuity, eye movements, and vertigo. With regard to the last, he entered into a debate with Erasmus Darwin concerning the involvement of eye movements in vertigo. Indeed, Wells should be acknowledged as laying the foundations for modern studies of vestibular function as well as eye movements. The book reprints his Essay on single vision with two eyes (1792) and his own Memoir of his life (1818). Wells also outlined a theory of natural selection before Charles Darwin and provided an account of the formation of dew. His essay on natural selection is reprinted as an Appendix to the book. Wells' experiments and observations on natural phenomena will surprise students of science because of their modernity.