The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900 — John Shaqi
The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
Science
The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
One may note in this connection that hyperæsthesia to color is nearly
always an undue sensibility to red and very rarely to any other color.
The case has been recorded of a highly neurotic officer who, for more
than thirty years, was intolerant of red-colored objects. The dazzling
produced by scarlet uniforms, especially in bright sunshine, seriously
interfered with the performance of his duties, and in private life red
parasols, shawls, etc., produced similar effects; he was often overcome
in the streets by giddiness, sometimes almost before he realized that
he was looking at a red object. Many years ago Laycock referred to the
case of a lady who could not bear to look at anything red, and Elliston
also had a lady patient to whom red was very obnoxious, and who, when
put into a room with red curtains, drank seven quarts of fluid a day.
I am not aware that any such hyperæsthesia exists in the case of other
colors. It is also noteworthy that the morbid affection in which color
is seen when it does not exist is most usually a condition in which
red is seen (erythropsia), yellow being the color most frequently seen
after red (a condition called xanthopsia); the other colors are very
rarely seen, and Hilbert, in his monograph on the pathology of the
color sense, considers that this is due to the fact that red and yellow
make the most intense effect on the sensorium, which thus becomes
liable not only to direct but to reflected irritation, in the absence
of any external color stimulus. There are other facts which show that
of all colors red is that which acts as the most powerful stimulus on
the organism. Münsterberg, in some interesting experiments which he
made to illustrate the motor power of visual impressions as measured
by their arresting action on the eye-muscles, found that red and
yellow have considerably more motor power in stimulating the eye than
the other colors. It may be added also that, as Quantz has found, we
overestimate the magnitude of colors of the less refrangible part of
the spectrum and underestimate the others.
After puberty blue seems still to maintain its position, but red has
now come more to the front, while yellow has definitely receded;
although so favorite a color in classic antiquity, it is rarely the
preferred color among ourselves. J. Cohn in Germany found that among a
dozen students it was never in any degree of saturation the preferred
color, while at Cornell Major found that all the subjects investigated
considered yellow and orange either unpleasant or among the least
pleasant colors.
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