Color blindness : remarks / by B. Joy Jeffries at the twenty-ninth annual meeting of the board of the supervising inspectors of steam vessels.

  • Jeffries, B. Joy, 1853-
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Color blindness : remarks / by B. Joy Jeffries at the twenty-ninth annual meeting of the board of the supervising inspectors of steam vessels. 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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    the system of the normal sight, and cannot, consequently, agree with that of the color-blind. They can, nevertheless, be learned by the lat- ter, and even applied correctly in many cases. There is connected with this fact a peculiarity of utmost importance, practically, to the question in point, and one which has given rise to the most serious embarrassments and misunderstandings. This has been, and is still, one of the chief causes of our erroneous ideas on the subject of color- bhndness existing in the masses, because it is the veil under which this defect usually conceals itself from our observation in every-day life, and under which, even to the last moment, it will succeed in escaping discovery in cases where, as frequently happens, the methods of ex- ploration emx^loyed are indecisive or are based upon erroneous princi- ples. If we reflect on the condition of the color-blind, it is difficult to under- stand how he can avoid being detected in his daily intercourse with those endowed with normal sight, and yet experience has sufficiently controverted this idea. That which we have acquired in examining en masse the ])ersonnel of a railway, for example, where it is required night and day to give attention to colored signals, is singularly worthy of notice. We learn by it that a number of color-blind were discovered, although their defective sense of color had never been suspected by themselves or any one else, and the majority had correctly ]3erformed their duties. I have said thatno one can have tested and talked with many color-bhnd without being convinced that we can hardly set any limit to their capacity for learning other attributes of colored objects, and recognizing and remembering their color names through these alone. Thus, as we now well know, they may even deceive themselves, as well as others, into the belief that they have gained by practice a color perception they were not born with. The color-blind have even succeeded as landscape and portrait paint- ers, as they have seemingly succeeded as pilots and railroad engineers. If the painter's colors are not marked or chosen for him detection may result, as shown by the following case: A student of the Eoyal Acad- emy of London, who was selected, not only by the authorities, but also by his fellow-students, as having about the Iffest perception for form and power of light and shade, turned to the use of colors. In this it was naturally supposed he would exhibit extraordinary talent, and become a great painter. He was allowed to take a portrait by Titian from the National Gallery and have it in a small room to himself. There he coi)ied it to his best abihty, as he stated to the j)rincipal and to his l)rother students. No one had seen him at work. His result was the most perfect copy, as far as light and shade went, but in pea-green. He finally became an engraver. Color names the color-blind learn in various ways to use as we do, and this has heretofore greatly assisted them in escaping detection. And in this way they even now escape, since, in spite of the warnings jears ago of Goethe and Helmholtz, that asking them the names of colors would simply drive both parties crazy, there are many whose official duty should teach them better, who still cannot get rid of the idea that they can find out how another persons sees colors by simply asking them the color-names of objects. Every one who has the shght- «st knowledge of this subject and any experience at all, now admits that attempting to test the color sense by asking the names of colors