Blindness's cure in the 1950's?

Tricky since there are still a lot of cases that cannot be cured today.. First idea would be Cataract, but cataract operations date to around 1949 in England, where the Intraocular Lens was invented, so the chance of it being used and her survive in the 1950s might be a little tricky. It wasn't wide spread until the 1970s..

Glaucoma would be the next option, Albrecht Von Graefe (around 1856 i believe), come up with the Iridectomy, which was THE cure, though today, Laser Iridectomy has replaced it for more acute cases due to safety and success rates. Though I'm not quite sure if it's that likely for a young girl to have Glaucoma at such an advance stage..

A good bet would be a Simple Cornea Transplant. First preformed around 1905 by Eduard Zirm, it was used a fair bit with alot of improvements until 1931, when Russian Vladimir Filatov was able to successfully graft corneal tissue from a dead person onto another persons eye. Full details were reported in 1936 in full detail. However, I'm not quite sure on what could be the sources for just getting the Cornea damaged..

In 2002, Who did publish a list of the most common causes for Blindness in the world..From there site, Cataracts (47.9%), Glaucoma (12.3%), Age-related Macular Degeneration (8.7%), Corneal Opacities (5.1%), Diabetic Retinopathy (4.8%), Childhood Blindness (3.9%, but this includes ALOT of things), Trachoma (3.6) and Onchocerciasis (0.8%).

Personally.. i would say Go with Corneal Opacities. I'm pretty sure both a young child can get it to the point of blindness (a vitamin A deficiency would lead to it) AND a Cornea Transplant that was around in the 1950s, could cure it. As to how Effective, We have the problem. Children's eyes are much smaller then adults and have other problems too.. even today, the success rate is about 10%, and in 5% of cases, the eyes are lost completely at today, it's rare to find a surgeon who will take on such a complex operation with such a low success rate. In 1950, the Microscopes that could be used, weren't great and it wasn't until the 1950s that the main operating microscopes were being used, and then for Ear Operations.

I'm afraid, you would probably need someone with way more advice on this topic then me, but i guess it's possible, with a reason, for a doctor in them days to try it and it works.. They would have to be very lucky and very sure of there skills.. But then, that isn't uncommon in novels. So try to do some more research, maybe at a library or something like that, but i think Corneal Opacities due to vitamin A deficiency should hold up with a Cornea Transplant to cure.

If she has been blind from birth, I'd say no. But you could maybe give her cataract at an early age, such as two years old, so she doesn't really remember much about once not being blind. ... You can't give her cataract from birth and then miraculously cure her many years later, because if it's not operated on right away (say in the first year of life), then the person will remain blind even if you operate them because they have never learned to see.

Cataract operations date back to the Middle Ages - done in the market square and without any anesthesia, and there was no artificial lens either. But it's not such a new technique, it only got better over time.

There've been reports of people regaining their eyesight after a lifetime of blindness after getting surgery or whatever.

Look up in any search engine, blindness restored or sight regained.

Its a NOVEL. Make something up.