Discoveries in light and vision; with a short memoir containing discoveries in the mental faculties.

The first work on vision written by a woman and published in the United States. Griffith published the work anonymously. 

"Griffith’s work had its start in print in 1834, when she published two articles on vision in David Brewster’s prestigious Philosophical Magazine: “Observations of the Vision of the Retina” (4: 43–46) and “Observations on the Spectra of the Eye and the Seat of Vision” (5:192–196). Both contributions appeared under her own name. Brewster, certainly a leading authority in the field of optics at the time, appended an editorial comment to the first article stating that some of the conclusions reached by Griffith were incorrect, but nonetheless he felt that her observations were interesting enough to be printed. Not one to take criticism well, Griffith led off her second article with an attack on Brewster, objecting that he had provided no evidence to back up his claim, and she, for one, continued to believe that she was correct in all particulars. In both the dedication and the preface of Discoveries in Light and Vision, Griffith acknowledges that her conclusions are often diametrically opposed to those held by the leading scientific men of the day, but she is convinced that their soundness will one day be acknowledged even by her harshest critics" (Joseph J. Felcone, private communication).

Digital facsimile from the U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.