CLVJ BOWMAN LECTURE. 



The first-born, III, 2, is reported by his daughter to have been " very 

 short-sighted and night-blind, and had always to be led about after 

 dusk all his life"; as he lived to be 76, and is never known to have 

 worn reading spectacles, he was probably myopic. He had a sister 

 and a brother (III, 4 and 6) who had perfect vision until they died; both 

 left children and grandchildren. Of the latter, two had some affection 

 of sight, but no one knows whether they were night-blind or not (see 

 below) ; all their other descendants in IV and V are normal. 



He (III, 2) married twice, there being no consanguinity between him 

 and either wife or between the wives. By the first he had an only child 

 ? (IV, 2), with good sight, who had an only child (V, 1, illegitimate), 

 now aged thirty-five and night-blind; his only child (VI, 1) is normal. 

 By his second wife, III, 2 had 5 children (IV, 3 to 7) all with good sight, 

 three <J , two $ . One of the daughters (IV, 4), who died in 1908, left a 

 son who is night-blind (V, 4) and a daughter (V, 3) with normal eyes. 

 Of the numerous other grandchildren of III, 2, none are night-blind, 

 but it is noteworthy that the other female who might transmit (IV, 

 5), has had only one child. 



Description of the Cases. 



Ill, 2 a compositor, who died at 76, is reputed to have been always 

 unable to see at night but to have had no defect in the day; his 

 daiighter, IV, 4, remembers (speaking in 1907) having often in former 

 years had to lead her father home by the arm at night ; he never Avore 

 any spectacles, and was therefore probably myopic in some degree. 



V, 1, set. 35 years, a clerk at Doncaster, was examined by Mr. C. H. 

 Usher and myself at the house of Mr. Usher's brother in Lincolnshire 

 in 1908. Has been short-sighted and unable to see at night as long as 

 he can remember ; as a small boy when first at school he could not see 

 the blackboard ; the night-blindness has got no worse. Has never had 

 glasses, and the progress or otherwise of the myopia therefore cannot be 

 ascertained ; refraction now, estimated about 7 D. and 10 D. in R. and L. 

 at posterior pole, decidedly less at periphery ; f undus of medium com- 

 plexion and normal in every particular except for moderate myopic 

 crescents. Black hair, colour of irides not noted. Married eight years, 

 one child only. The tests as to light sense defect were necessarily 

 inexact but were made with much care, and in all cases were compared 

 with our own sight under the same conditions of light, but his myopia 

 was not corrected. 



As to reading : with a considerably lowered light, he was unable to 

 read print with his myopia uncorrected, which I (E.N.) could read per- 

 fectly with + 4 or + 5 D. ; but in good lamp-light he read J. 1 easily. 

 When shown a screen and a bed-cover, each with large patterns of different 

 but somewhat sombre colours, he required much more light than we did 

 to recognise the pattern, and this at his own normal far point. No defect 

 of Fs. could be discovered, but we noticed that when seeking to see 

 an object beyond his far point, viz., a picture, or the pattern on the 



