Report of the Committee on Colour- Vision. 345 



With regard to results obtained in increasing- the sensibility of 

 the eye to red in red colour-blind cases I have had a patient who 

 came to me originally at Moorfields, who had been rejected by 

 the Board of Trade because he could not see bluish-green or red 

 lights on board ship. He was extremely colour-blind with regard 

 to red, the red colour being shortened nearly up to the orange, so 

 it occurred to me that acting on the supposition that in his case 

 the trouble was probably central and not peripheral — for I could 

 find no change whatever in the disc — I got him a pair of goggles 

 so as to completely exclude all daylight except what filtered 

 through the best red photographic glass with which they were 

 fitted. I told him to wear these goggles the whole day long 

 until he went to bed at night, not taking them off until the lights 

 were out. He followed my instructions, and I tested him every 

 consecutive month with Holmgren's wools, and noted on a list 

 the colours in which he made mistakes. At the end of a month 

 I found a considerable improvement, and at the end of three 

 months his colour-vision was nearly perfect, being wrong in only 

 three out of forty, whereas at first he was wrong in thirty out of 

 forty. I sent him again to the Board of Trade for re-examina- 

 tion, and they found he was so much better than before that 

 they told him still more, he might come to them again and they 

 would grant his certificate. He went up again and passed com- 

 pletely in the red and green glass test with the lantern, but 

 failed on the card test in the light pink and light blue. The last 

 time I heard he had got the post of mate of a vessel trading 

 between London and the Netherlands. 



He wore these coloured glasses up to the time he passed. He 

 said it was a great trouble seeing everything red, but insisted on 

 keeping to them, notwithstanding the inconvenience ; and upon 

 testing him with the spectroscope — which is the only absolute 

 test we possess — there certainly was an improvement in his vision 

 as far as the extent of light towards the red end was concerned. 

 I asked him to define red, but from what I could gather he had 

 always had congenital colour-blindness, and it was very difficult 

 to say whether his sensation of red was the same as ours. It is 

 my firm conviction that the continual stimulation of some part 

 of the conducting fibres or sensorium — whether peripheral or 

 central — of red, awoke a faculty of perceiving something which 

 may be called red. I did not try whether his colour-blindness 

 was central, nor whether he relapsed after leaving off his 

 glasses, but will make enquiries. 



I tried with two other similar cases, which got a little better, 

 but afterwards they gave up the goggles, saying they could 

 not see well enough to go about with the glasses. I do not 

 think the case I have mentioned was due to tobacco, as the man 

 hardly ever smoked, and his vision was very acute, being -fths, 

 or one line below normal, in either eye. 



With regard to detecting colour-blindness by the ophthalmo- 

 scope I may say that I have strong reasons for believing there 



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