A physician's notes on ophthalmology. 2nd series / by J. Hughlings Jackson.

  • Jackson, John Hughlings, 1834-1911.
Date:
[1875]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A physician's notes on ophthalmology. 2nd series / by J. Hughlings Jackson. 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.

    31/32 (page 27)
    COLOURED VISION IN AMAUROSIS AND EPILEPSY. The following may be read in common with previous remarks on Coloured Vision, in our last Periscope, page 91. It is from the Hospital Reports of the “ Lancet,” January 16, 1375. “ Patients who are blind or partly blind from atrophy of the optic nerves are not always in-darkness; they may be in redness. The following is a note by Dr. Hughlings Jackson of a case he saw in private :—“ Some years ago I saw a patient with defect, not loss, of sight, from simple atrophy of the optic nerves, who said his sight sometimes became ‘blood-red,’ and would be so all day. He was tormented by this, and spoke of it as being ‘ frightful,’ ‘ terrible.’ He had not always the coloured vision. One day he remarked to me: ‘ To-morrow is not a red day— it is a dull, dark day.’ So that it would seem there was some kind of order in the intermissions. It is worth notice that his coloured field was broken by black fines and dots. Most un- fortunately I had no note of the patient’s power of seeing colours, which might, perhaps, have been roughly tested in the intervals of his coloured sight. The probability is that the patient would at no time during his defect of sight have been able to see red. The attacks of red sight were analogous to attacks of spasm. Now, it is certain that spasm attacks, as it were, by preference those parts which are most subject to para- lysis, and will attack parts already partially or even completely paralysed. Thus we should by analogy expect that the colour first lost and the one first developed would be the same.” It is understood, of course, that the comparison spoken of is, strictly speaking, betwixt excitations of sensory and motor nerves and centres; the comparison of development of colour with spasm of muscles is nonsensical, for colour is a state of mind. [See note on Colour, p. 18.] “ When colour development is a warning of an epileptic seizure, the colour developed is, Dr. Hughlings Jackson thinks, generally red. It is not always so.” . This was remarked on in the last Periscope, p. 91. Dr. Hughlings Jackson says he finds that Falret has long since noticed that a premonitory symptom or beginning of an epileptic seizure is often red vision, but then Falret says too, “ or purple,” which colour is a mixture of the extreme colours red and blue (see next note). WARNING (aura) OF COLOURED VISION IN RELATION TO EPILEPTIC “ DREAMS,” AND TO EPILEPTIC MANIA. The following is from the same number of the “ Lancet,” but contains additional sentences :— “ In chronic conditions of mental impairment it seems certain that ‘subjective’ sensations are factors in producing delusions. Thus a lunatic who has subjective smells may think his food is