[lit-ideas] Daltonism in Literature
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 21:32:33 EDT
Andreas Ramos finds it very surprising that we are still honouring Goodman's
thoughts on 'grue'.
But back to Dalton, yes McCreery, I'm familiar with that bibliography you
mention.
Ramos complains that Krueger, without being an 'aborigine of Wales or
Australia' cannot perceive the differences between Code A and Code B.
Ditto for John Dalton (b. Shrewsbury, 1766-1844). He led a quiet uneventful
life, till he got to Jesus College, in Oxford. He joined the cricket team.
The fields were covered with a diminute red flower called the 'scarlet
pimpernel', and Dalton failed to see them.
"Mind them pimpernels", his mates would shout. To no avail. He would not see
the pimpernels. Eventually, he was sent to the Nurse, and ultimately to the
Imperial College, where it was determined that Dalton found the distinction
between red and green _redundant_.
Now his name is remembered -- for that very trait of his perceptual scheme
DALTONISM was a word
"but objected to by English authors on the ground that it associated a great
name with a physical defect. See Wartmann's papers on ‘Daltonisme’ in Mem.
Soc. Phys. de Genève (1843) X. 273; and (1849) XII. 183.] A name for
colour-blindness; esp. inability to distinguish between red and green. 1841
E.
WARTMANN in Rep. Brit. Assoc. II. 40 An incomplete vision of colours which
has
been called Daltonism. 1855 J. DIXON Pract. Study Dis. Eye 261 Of all the
unfortunate inventions of pathological nomenclature the word Daltonism..seems
to me the worst.
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