On cases of accident to shipping and on railways due to defects of sight / by E. Nettleship.

  • Edward Nettleship
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On cases of accident to shipping and on railways due to defects of sight / by E. Nettleship. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    that his sight was defective, but he also said that the lights had not seemed to him as clear as usual. He used his binoculars at any rate at first, but they were left on the wreck and there was therefore no opportunity of seeing whether they were faulty or not. His eyes were examined by Dr. Barrett several times within a few days of the accident and found to be myopic to the extent of about 3 dioptres ; vision without glasses varied from ^ (^) to (J) and with the appropriate glasses was raised to nearly |- (1) • colour vision normal ; no disease of the fundus of either eye. His age was 50. His heart, arteries and kidneys were unsound, but these conditions do not appear to have been factors in causing the casualty. He was temperate, and neither brought any alcohol on board with him nor received any whilst there. Case 13.—On inquiry it appeared that the same pilot had had a previous accident. He was in charge of the S.S, Indraghiri when she ran aground at night on March 10th, 1904, i.e., about three months before the wreck of the ci Australia. The night on that occasion was dark, but clear, and the lights were visible. The accident was caused by his failing to see the occulting light of a certain buoy. He said he thought the light was obscured by a flight of birds. It is practically certain that if this pilot's form-vision for long distance had been full, or approximately so, neither of the two accidents for which he was responsible would have occurred. Case 14.—According to Nagel (38), a shipping collision of special interest in relation to our present subject took place in the autumn of 1906 near Trelleborg, a place on the extreme south coast of Sweden, about fifty miles from Copenhagen. During a clear night the Danish steamer Heimdal ran across the bows of the Finnish barque Onni and was rammed by her. The Heimdal did not sink, but the ramming vessel, Onni, sank some time after. The blame fell upon the steersman of the Heimdal, who said at t]ie inquiry that the uOnni had