The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-04-26
FREAKS OF CoLoR BLINDNESS.


FREAKS OF COLOR BLINDNESS.
"You hear very little nowadays
about color blindness among railroad
employees" said the railroad man
ager, because very rigid and con-
slant system of examination and in
spection is maintained. Some very
interesting experiments are made in
these examinations and some odd in
cidents occur.
"The color inspector gets in time
to be something of an amateur scien-
tist and garners considerable stock
of knowledge. He learns for one
thing, that most people whose sense
of color is deficient are blind to red,
still others to green and only few
to violet.
GA man blind to red cannot dis
tinguish between red and green !;
neither can the green-blind. The
red-blind man will see red, but it
looks light green to him. The green
to the green-b1ind is light hue of
red.
cat first our inspection was con-
fined entirely to the eyes of engineers
and fremen, but nowadays every
man in the operating department,
whether switchman, brakeman or
trainhand, must pass the tests pre-
scribed. We find that about S per
cent. of the applicants have defect
of one kind or other. and re-examina-
tions are necessary often because luck
or boldness sometimes favors a man !;
and then once in a while man de-
velops blindness later.
.When we first began the inspec-
tion we were constantly surprised at
finding that some of our most careful
engineers, men who had driven en-
gines for years without any accident
that could be traced to mistaken sig
mails, were affected. 1t may seem
odd that railroads happened to select
green and red for their danger sig
nails, the two colors upon which most
cases of blindness occur, but it was
simply because no other colors have
the luminous character of these, can
be seen further or more distinctly.
"Much of this immunity is due in
the first place to the fact that every
old engineer on a road is familiar
with the location of the signal lights.
In the second place, supposing him
to be red-blind, he is quick to discov-
er the difference this kind of lamp
presents to him from the ordinary
green.
"He sees in the red lamp simply a
lighter shade of green, and if aware
of his defect strives to differentiate
between the two. The danger, Of
course, lies in the fact, that the diff
ference is not sufficiently marked tc
distinguish it.
"Once in a while we have run
across cases in which man once re-
iected for supposed color blindness
successfully passed a second examina-
| ton. This was not due to any de-
feet in the last inspection, but tc
the fact that the man had previously
suffered from lack of color develop
ment. He simply did not know
| Color blindness is itself incurable
But there are so many different shades
and hues that very few can pass or
examination save in the ordinary
colors.
cit may sound a little odd, but
among laboring people, especially il
large cities there is woeful lack OF
education even in the simpler colors
If an afflicted person learns early
enough in life that he is defective II
his color sense he may be able to keel
the knowledge from others by learn
ing to apply color designation to OBJ
iects by the form in which they pre-
sent themselves to him.
"But when one of these color-blind
persons attempts to deceive the ex
aminers he falls down. 1t might bE
assumed that because we want tC
find out if the men can distinguish be
tween red and green lights we use
these lights to make our examination
"This, it will be admitted, seem:
to be the fair thing to do, but a:
trainmen must learn to distinguish
lights in all sorts of weather, OF
foggy, damp nights as well as on cleal
nights, with distances constantly va
rying, it can readily be seen tha
these are not safe tests for the EN-
ploying company. Some railroad in
spectors use skeins of woolen yarn
others balls of yarn, others screens O
various colors.
"The first test system used was
very cumbersome one. 1t was in
vented by a Swedish professor, wht
used batch of about gross OF skeln
of all graduations of the more com
mon colors. His method was to tax
one skein and then have his man picl
out of the heap as many skeins as b
could of the same color, disregardini
light and dark shades; in short, t