Incurability of congenital color-blindness / by B. Joy Jeffries.

  • Jeffries, B. Joy (Benjamin Joy), 1833-1915.
Date:
[1878]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Incurability of congenital color-blindness / by B. Joy Jeffries. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    of the colors in question, and this hy one who held them before him to compare, both on his palette and on the arrows. Yet the party who committed the mistake was an excellent draughtsman, much esteemed by his master, and surrounded at his daily work with splendid specimens of stained glass. This mistake which he made soon ceased to be a solitary one; for his fellow-workmen, having since its occurrence put him to the test, found him uncertain in his judgment of many colors, and on examining him I found him commit the character- istic errors of the color-blind. Here, then, was the possessor of an educated color-blind eye making such mistakes as no normal-eyed person, however uneducated his power of vision might be, could or would make. Education, then, can do nothing towards curing congen- ital color-blindness, nor in truth can anything else.” Dr. Goubert, in 1867, says as to treatment of color-blindness :1 “ I have here no more consoling words or fruitful resources to present. Whatever the symptoms characterizing this peculiar imperfection, it be- longs to that large number which the divine art of Aesculapius is pow- erless to cure, perhaps even to mitigate. All ophthalmic surgeons are unanimous on this point.” Professor Holmgren, of the University of Upsala, Sweden, has very thoroughly discussed Dr. Havre’s publications, and he is in position both theoretically and practically to test attempts to cure color-blindness by exercise with colors, etc. After citing from his pamphlets, he says:2 “ This does not materially change the point of view we have adopted and indicated. It will be admitted that to positively prove the curabil- ity of color-blindness it is indispensable to establish the fact, first, that the treatment was applied to persons who were proven color-blind ; and secondly, that these same persons after treatment had perfectly normal color vision, or were not deficient in it. Dr. Favre’s brochure does not give us sufficient proofs of this. In short, without denying, on theoret- ical or practical grounds, the curability of color-blindness, we must hold that as yet no positive proof of it has been furnished. “ We, on our part, have not yet seen the result of a systematic exer- cise in learning colors pursued months or years ; but the observations we have made on the exercise of the color-blind and their general effects may not be without interest, and throw some light on the im- portance of such exercise. We have said that the color-blind railroad employes learn to distinguish the flag signals in common use, and rarely make a mistake when examined especially on this point. Does this result depend on the training, and in what way ? The color-blind who are not railroad employes can answer this. If we show them the ordi- nary flags (green and red) one after the other, they will nearly always name one or the other wrongly, and often both, and even sometimes frankly admit they do not know the true names of the colors. But if we show them the two flags at the same time, and ask which is green and which red, they at once see a difference ; and, having fixed the name in their memory, they no longer make mistakes, but will tell the 1 De l’Acbroniatopsic ou Cecite ties Couleurs. Dr. E. Goubert. Paris. 1867. 2 De la Cecite' des Couleurs. F. Holmgren. Stockholm. 1877.