Relative frequency of color-blindness in males and females / by B. Joy Jeffries.

  • Jeffries, B. Joy (Benjamin Joy), 1833-1915.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Relative frequency of color-blindness in males and females / by B. Joy Jeffries. 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.

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    MALES AND FEMALES. BT B. JOY JEFFRIES, A. M., M. D. In an article written last fall on the dangers of color-blindness, and recently published in the Massachusetts State Board of Health Report, I stated, “ It has been frequently said that color-blindness was less com- mon among females than males. This is probably incorrect, and due to the fact that such a defect is of more importance with the female sex, and therefore more carefully concealed. They have not been tested as males have ; and most likely futui’e statistics, based on true methods of testing, will reverse the now quite general impression as to their having better color perception, and hence to be preferred, where admis- sible, as railroad employes.” My doubt was also based upon the fact that we had no large number of reliable statistics to prove the contrary. But more especially because methods of testing for color-blindness in females had been employed, call- ing upon the observed to name colors shown, which females from habit could unquestionably do with greater facility than men, and hence fewer appear deficient in color perception. Professor Wilson, in his Researches on Color-Blindness, says, page 75, “I have no results to offer respect- ing the prevalence of color-blindness among females. I have already stated my conviction that it is I’arer among them than among males, but only an extended inquiry can show the amount of difference in this re- spect between the sexes.” In a note in his appendix, page 164, he adds, “ Since the text was written I have been informed of a few more cases of color-blindness amons educated women in England. The general tendency, however, of my later inquiries, as of my earlier ones, is to I show that color-blindness is very much rarer among women than men.” Dr. A. Favre, in an article in the Q-azette hebdomadaire, October 12, 1877, says, “ We have tested very few adult females, from the diffi- culty of such examinations, but more especially because the majority of ' women readily acquire an exact notion of colors, and they do not belong ; to the professions where color-blindness is dangerous; hence they do not interest us more in an industrial than a medical point of view. i Among 236 girls of four schools (three in Lyons, one in Paris) we