Physiologists consider that there are two kinds of colour-blindness,—one
where only two colours are seen, the other where more than two are
perceptible. Daubeny Turberville, an oculist of Salisbury, mentions a
case of the former, in which a young girl, like the Maryport shoemaker
mentioned by Brewster, could only distinguish between black and white,
everything between the two being of different shades of grey. This girl,
singularly enough, could see to read in twilight a quarter of an hour
after her companions. This sharpness of sight appears to be not at all
uncommon amongst those who are colour-blind. Spurzheim mentions the ease
of a whole family who were afflicted in the same way as Turberville’s
patient. All the male members of Troughton’s family were equally
incapable of distinguishing any colours but blue and yellow.
The cases of colour-blindness where more than two colours are
distinguishable, are much more common. Goethe, the great German poet,
who dabbled a great deal in optics, knew two young men who, although
they possessed powerful sight, and could distinguish between white,
black, grey, yellow, and orange, were at a loss when the shades between
dark red and rose-colour were in question. A piece of dried carmine
appeared bright red to them, and a faint carmine hue on a white shell,
and a rose-leaf, light blue; the leaves of trees and grass appeared
yellow, and they confounded rose-colour, blue, and violet together.
Goethe supposed them to be incapable of perceiving blue and its several
hues, and called their defect by a high sounding Greek name,
_akyanoblepsy_, or blue-blindness. Péclet mentions two other persons,
also brothers, who likewise were incapable of distinguishing between
blue, violet, and rose-colour. Like Professor Whewell, they confounded
the dull scarlet of the trousers of the French infantry with the leaves
of the trees. Yellow appeared to them more brilliant than any other
colour. Doctor Sommer and his brother could not distinguish between red
and its derivatives and other colours; they could only distinguish
between yellow, blue, white, and black. Doctor Nicholl mentions a child
that could only see red, yellow, and blue, in the spectrum. It could
distinguish green, but called it brown when it was dark, and pink when
it was pale. The same physiologist knew a man who called red green, and
brown dark green. A young lady who was an amateur artist, could not
perceive a piece of scarlet cloth hanging on a hedge that was close to
her, although others could see it plainly half a mile off. One day she
gathered, as a great curiosity, a lichen which she supposed to be of a
bright scarlet hue, but which was in reality of a beautiful green.
Another time she could see no difference between carmine and prussian
blue. A gardener living at Clydesdale, who began life as a weaver, was
compelled to give up his first trade because in daylight he confounded
all light colours; yellow and its varieties he could distinguish
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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