First scientific description of colour blindness (Dalton)
Primera descripción científica del daltonismo (Dalton)
- Date
- 1794-1798 · confidence high
- Place
- Manchester, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- John Dalton
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
In 1794 Dalton read a paper in Manchester on his own colour vision, which confused reds and greens, and attributed it to a defect of the eye. It was the first scientific description of colour blindness, which took the name daltonism from him.
Joseph Huddart described a case in 1777 and there are even earlier reports; Dalton made the most systematic study. His hypothesis of a blue humour of the eye was refuted at his autopsy (1844); DNA analysis in 1995 indicated deuteranopia.
What it led to
- colour-vision tests (Ishihara and others)
- the trichromatic hypothesis of Young and Helmholtz
- colour-vision screening in transport and trades