COLOUR BLINDNESS.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1791, 17 November 1879, Page 3

COLOUR BLINDNESS.

Mr R. A. Proctor writes in the " Australasian ":—The question has been raised how far color-blindness may result merely from want of training. We know that what is called a "bad ear " is due simply to the untrained condition of the part of the aural apparatus which is called the "organ of Oorti," by means of which, according to Helmholtz, we estimate the frsquenoy of the vibrations determining musical tones. The idea suggested respecting colour-blindness is that the defect is due to want of proper instruction in inf anoy, and may admit of being remedied. It is well known that about one person in thirteen|is colour-blind, often without knowing he is so until some test discloses to him the unpleasant fact. Now, if colour-blindness were a natural deficiency, we should find the same proportion of the colour-blind among children. But Mr Charles E. Routledge, an inspector of Government schools, states that during fifteen years he has had occasion to examine many thousand infants, and he has "never discovered one single instance in which an infant (i.e., a child under seven years of age) has been unmistakably color-blind. The inference that colour-blindneßS results from want of training, and can be corrected, is confirmed by a case cited in the " Times " of August 25th." "A young and otherwise robust oostermonger," writes Dr. Stone, of St. Thomas's Hospital, " was admitted for obscure nervous symptoms of a character." Among the peculiarities noted in the case was an inability to name and recognise colour, which, however, did not agree with the usual characteristics of Daltonism. _ It occurred to Dr. Stone that the defect might be educational. The sister of the ward procured for him what he calls a " chromatic alphabet," consisting of bright skeins of Berlin wool. " This we unexpectedly set before him," says Dr. Stone; "at first he blundered sadly, but with a little praotice he improved, though the power of associating a particular visual impression with a_ certain name, only came slowly. It took still more time to separate near than distant tints, just as a child long confuses O and G with Q, B with R, and so forth. Oostermongerlike, the patient had abundant mother-wit, but little application, a keen sense of humour, but no education whatever. Through the sister's kind perseverance he was cured not only of nervous symptoms, but of what has been concisely termed his pßeudo-chromatopßy." The name, by the way, may be concise in the senße of being but a single word. It is, however, an awful example of name-making. Why could not the costermonger's ailment have been called " imperfect sense of colour," or by some other title which every English-speaking person could understand, instead of receiving a name made up of Greek elements. This fondness for the use of Greek and Latin terma seems to be an incurable disease in the medical profession.