582 SIGHT. 



light red and pink, blue. His maternal grandfather, and one uncle, 

 had the same imperfection. This uncle was in the navy, and, 

 having a blue uniform coat and waistcoat, purchased a pair of 

 red breeches to match. 2 Dr. Nicholl mentions a gentleman who 

 could not distinguish green from red. The grass in full verdure 

 always appeared to him what others call red ; and ripe fruit on 

 trees he could not distinguish from the leaves ; a cucumber and 

 a boiled lobster were of the same colour in his sight ; and a leek 

 resembled a stick of sealing-wax. This person had a brother and 

 a niece the daughter of another brother, in a similar pre- 

 dicaments Indeed, the defect has frequently occurred in several 

 members of the same family, and frequently has been hereditary, 

 sometimes passing over a generation, like other peculiarities of 

 structure. It is observed more frequently, perhaps, in men. In 

 the rarest and most extreme cases no colour is distinguished, all 

 objects appearing in this respect alike. In all the cases in which 

 the point has been examined, the part of the cranium under which, 



* Med. Chir. Trans, vol. vii. 



a 1. c. vol. ix. A case communicated to Dr. Priestley will be found in the 

 Phil. Trans. 1777. The man had two brothers with the same defect. Another 

 will be found in the vol. of 1778. The gentleman's father, maternal uncle, one 

 of his sisters, and two of her sons, had the same defect. In the Phrenol. Trans, is 

 another by Dr. Butter. In the Manchester Memoirs, vol. v., are others. One such 

 person painted a man's head with a green beard and blue cheeks. In Mr. G. 

 Combe's System of Phrenology, and the Edinburgh Phrenological Transactions, are 

 mentioned one of three brothers and a cousin, who inherited it from their maternal 

 grandfather, the intervening generation not having it. Professor Dugald Stewart, 

 and Mr. Troughton, as well as many of his family, could not distinguish colours; 

 and the celebrated instrument-maker was therefore prevented from applying 

 himself to execute any thing in which it was necessary to distinguish them. 

 Dr. Dalton has the same defect. A case of this defect is recorded in the Edin. 

 Phren. Trans, by Dr. Butter of Plymouth ; and, to show what irrational hostility 

 is offered to phrenology by men of whom we might expect better things, I 

 must mention that the paper was sent to the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal^ 

 but that the editor, Sir David Brewster, choosing that it should not sup- 

 port phrenology, altered the title, without consulting the author, to Remarks 

 on the Insensibility of the Eye to certain Colours, and suppressed the phrenologi- 

 cal comments, " for obvious reasons," he says, viz. that phrenology is not a 



substantial science." Yet Sir David Brewster would wish to be considered a 

 philosopher in alHiis intellectual and moral doings. Still more lamentable and 

 very recent conduct with the view of suppressing phrenological truth may be 

 seen, in the case of The Edin. Med. and Surgical Journal. See The Edinburgh 

 Phrenological Journal, December, 1836; and June, 1837, p. 632. 



