Daltonism – Named after John Dalton
- Posted by Daniel Flück on April 9th, 2006 filed in People
- 13 Comments »
John Dalton was the first scientist to take academic interest in the subject of color blindness. He was born September 6, 1766 in Eaglesfield, England and died July 27, 1844 of paralysis. One of the first scientific papers John Dalton published was titled “Extraordinary facts relating to the vision of colours” and released in 1793.
Starting his career as a teacher he got interested in meteorology and mathematics. As Jonathan, his seven years older brother and John himself both were affected by red-green color blindness he also started some observations and researches about color vision.
“That part of the image which others call red appears to me little more than a shade or defect of light. After that the orange, yellow and green seem one colour which descends pretty uniformly from an intense to a rare yellow, making what I should call different shades of yellow”
He postulated that shortage in color perception was caused by discoloration of the liquid medium of the eyeball called aqueous humour. According to his research he believed that the aqueous humour was bluish and therefore filtered out all the colors. His observations and writings formed the expression Daltonism as a common wording for color blindness.
Through his lifetime John Dalton became a well known and respectable chemist and physicist and was one of the early proponents of the Atomic Theory. One of his last wills was to get an autopsy of his eyes after death. Unfortunately there wasn’t any bluish liquid found. It was his final experiment and proved that the condition called Daltonism is not caused by the eye itself, but some deficient sensory power.
Further readings:
WWNFF: John Dalton
Biography of John Dalton
Wikipedia: John Dalton
Notable Names Database: John Dalton
Related articles:
Mars in the Eyes of Colorblind Astronomer Schiaparellli
5 Misbeliefs about Color Blindness
April 10th, 2006 at 8:14
Thanks for this blog. I’m colorblind as well, and I’m astonished how much and how interesting you blog about this topic. Through your blog, I’m discovering colorblindness in a new way.
April 10th, 2006 at 8:40
My pleasure! – Suggestions are welcome as well.
January 29th, 2007 at 15:36
it helped me greatly to understand how John Dalton was impartant
April 16th, 2007 at 16:52
I love John Dalton ever since I was I little boy he was my hero and I want to be just like him when I grow up
May 23rd, 2008 at 17:36
thank you this helped me on my science project! :]
October 27th, 2008 at 22:45
Great info! I had to do a research report on color blindness. This helped a ton!
Thanks
November 4th, 2008 at 5:20
What do you mean by deficient sensory power?
November 4th, 2008 at 13:23
Apart from John Dalton, I thought it might be interesting to list famous colourblind people. Here’s a partial list, which anyone can add to: Anthony Burgess (British Author); Bill Clinton (ex-President USA); Tom Waits (American Musician); George Michael (British Musician); William Hague (British Politician).
November 4th, 2008 at 22:34
May, it means that not the construction of the eye is the source of the problem but the proper working of the color receptors.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:55
Ok, thanks! =]
April 6th, 2009 at 23:08
Great information, helped a lot on my science report on colour blindness, thanks !
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:53
THANKS SOOOO MUCH! i needed this for my science project! 5 pages is aloottt, and i only have 4 :’( oh well, thankss again! (;
September 17th, 2009 at 9:17
[...] John Dalton wrote the first known scientific paper regarding color [...]