CHESELDEN (CHESSELDEN), WILLIAM. — English anatomist and surgeon (1688–1752). He was the first to study, from a psychophysiological point of view, the behavior of a person blind from birth who had undergone surgery for cataract by depression of the lens, and thus resolved the problem posed by Molineux: whether a person blind from birth who is given sight could, with the aid of the eye alone and without using touch, distinguish a cube from a sphere. C.’s experiment is of capital importance in the study of the healing of the man blind from birth in the Gospel.
BIBL.: C.’s original work is in Philosophical Transactions, 402 (London 1728), p. 447. Luigi Seremin