Morning journal and courier., 1880-08-12
Price Four Cents.

ly color-blind will unhesitatHgly call clear red light green, vice versa, and every normal eyed person present will at once see the mistake.
 All accepted recruits for the United States army are examined as to their color-sense- the Government very properly directing that the examination shall be made only by it's own medical officers Twice in my own ex- perience during the past week, recruits, who by the worsted test had shown themselves color-bllnd, were incredulous of their ina bility to distinguish red and green signals One of them being shown two skeins and be- ing asked If they did not appear to him as different shades of the same color, answered promptly, No! This is red and this is green , which was the case. Yet this man is completely color blind. Confronted with Donders lanterns, he as decidedly pro- nounced bright red light to be green, elicit ing from soldier present the remark, 'I should hate to be a passenger with you for engineer" The result in the second case was similar.
 Should those who have failed to pass the examination for color -blindness and have since been examined by officers Of the road in a very practical CD way and not one of them found deficient in ability to see and answer signals promptly and properly [capitals in original be subjected to this perfectly fair trial, every one of them will demonstrate his incapacfty to the complete satisfaction of any norlnaleyed officer of the road or other per son who may see him tested-provided that the first examiner understood his business as there is no reason to doubt that he did.
 The fallacy of the Massachusetts Commis- sioners' report ''that examinations may be properly made by persons not medical ex- perts'' is well illustrated by an instance also falling under my personal observation. Among number of employees examined by a railroad official ln Massachusetts was person who is completely and dangerously color-blind. The official passed him, not as doubtful case, /" but internationally, as having normal color perception, and his inability to tell red from green was only accidentally discovered. How many other errors equally gross may have been made, there is no means of knowing
 Into the same category will fall the pro- posed employment of ''some young doctor who would do the examinations for twenty five cents apiece" Very few medical men are able to apply these tests correctly, and would work injury to the ex- amined; the general error of inexperience being to class as color-blind those who are not so, rather than the opposite mistake of failing to detect the really unfit.
 That near-sighted men, or those with other wise defective visual power, are unfit for en- gineers, etc., appears so self-evident as to call for no remark. The standard of visual power adopted by the Board of Health is surely no higher than must in all reason be considered requisite.
 True, 'the Connecticut Legislature MIGHT have taken this view of the matter" (that of the Massachusetts Commissioners, but they, their State and the travelling public are eminently to be congratulated that they DID NOT.
 I offer no apology for inficting upon your readers this rather long letter. To keep si- fence on this matter would be dereliction of my duty public servant J. F. HEAD
 Surgeon United States Army.
 Boston, Mass, Aug. 7, 1880.