That defective vision is beginning to interfere with the activities of men, is shown by the fact that in many instances, in later times, colour tests have been required to determine fitness of applicants for positions in various departments of commercial enterprise. In this country, during the last fifty years, much attention has been given to the subject of visual defects in seamen, railroadmen, and other persons occupying positions of responsibility in which unimpaired vision is an important qualification. In response to a request sent by the German Government through its minister to the Surgeon-General of the United States Army, for statistical and other information on the subject of colour-blindness, Mr. Charles E. Pugh, General Manager of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in September, 1884, sent to William Thomson, M.D., surgical expert for the same company, the following statement:
| Total number examined on lines east of Erie | 25,158 |
| Colour-blind | 481 |
| Defective vision | 661 |
Of this report Dr. Thomson says:
The apparently small percentage of colour-blind in this table may be ascribed to the non-application of men who knew their deficiency, and to the fact that men in the service, knowing their defect, would leave the road before examination, and thus escape detection, and be enabled to gain employment on other roads where no examinations are required.[38]
In several departments of the national government, attempts have been made to guard against the dangers resulting from imperfect sight. In the examination of recruits, the War Department at Washington, some years ago, issued orders that bits of coloured pasteboard, or “test cards” be used for determining the power of individuals to distinguish objects at a distance, while worsteds of various hues were employed to ascertain their ability to distinguish colour. In the Treasury and Naval Departments were ordered similar examinations, in which the power to distinguish colour was a necessary qualification in the case of all persons seeking employment therein.
In the examinations ordered by navigation and railroad companies to protect themselves and the public against disaster resulting from imperfect vision in their employees, tests have been made. Among the requirements imposed by law, applying to engineers, brakemen, and firemen, in the State of Connecticut, are the following: “Unobstructed visual field, normal visual acuteness, and freedom from colour-blindness.”
If Dr. Jeffries’s investigation in the Boston public schools and the report of the officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad are to serve as a criterion in judging of the extent to which impaired vision is developed in men, or if among them one in every twenty-five is defective in the colour sense, the inference seems unavoidable that the proportion of them unfitted for railroad and steamboat service, for military duty, and for various important government positions, must be large. Hence, by these tests alone may be observed something of the extent to which, under the higher conditions which are approaching, the imperfect development in men of this one organ (the eye) may cripple their energies and check those activities which, in many instances, are best suited to their tastes and inclinations.
Nor is this defective vision developed in men a peculiarity which is confined within the limits of our own country. In Europe, investigations analogous to those instituted in America have been followed by the same or similar results. Until a comparatively recent time this subject has received little or no attention, for the reason that the processes of civilization and the various activities of life have not, hitherto, demanded a correct or highly developed colour sense; but with the requirements of more highly civilized conditions, in vocations demanding more diversified and complicated physical and mental activities, it is plain that man, because of this organic imperfection, must labour under continuous disadvantages. Then add to defective vision his lack of physical endurance, his liability to various organic affections caused by structural defects, and his abnormal appetites which are constantly demanding for their gratification the things which are injurious to his mental and physical constitution, and we are enabled to judge, to some extent, of the obstacles against which, in the struggle for existence, the future man will find himself obliged to contend.
Not only is man’s sense of sight less perfectly developed than is woman’s, but his sense of touch is less acute. The hand, directed as it is by the brain, is the most completely differentiated member of the human structure. It may almost be said of the hand, that it assists the brain in performing its functions. The female hand, however, is capable of delicate distinctions which the male has no means of determining. A dispatch from Washington says of the women of the Treasury Department:
So superior is their skill in handling paper money that they accomplish results that would be utterly unattainable without them. It has been found by long experience that a counterfeit may go through half the banks in the country without being detected, until it comes back, often torn and mutilated, into the hands of the Treasury women. Then it is certain of detection. They shut their eyes and feel of a note if they suspect it. If it feels wrong, in half a minute they point out the incongruities of the counterfeit.