ABOUT COLOR BLINDNESS

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 36.

ABOUT COLOR BLINDNESS.

Mr. Hughes relates that while acting as assistant engineer on the Granton railway he frequently returned on one of the engines from Granton to Edinburgh. On these occasions he observed that, although his undivided attention was directed toward the signal lamps, the lights of which were visible to him a long way off, he could not, till he was close to them, tell whether they were red or green. These are the two colors most commonly confused, but happily, they are visible to the majority of color blind persons when strongly illuminated. Railway guards, therefore, are less liable to mistakes by night than by day. Inability to discern any colors at all is very rare, and, in fact, has never been satisfactorily proved. A color blind person may have as good a sight in other ways as anybody else. The defect is not occasioned by any disease in the eye, but seems to have its origin in the brain. A red-green blind person sees only two colors on the spectrum; all the colors on the side of the red (warm colors) are confused together, and all on the side of the violet (cold colors), but the warm and the cold are never confused. Yellow is the one color which is always distinguishable. It is a curious fact that color blindness is often associated with a corresponding inability to distinguish musical sounds.—Medical Register.