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THE HOLMGREN WOOL TEST
1384 is over, such a study of therapeutic possibilities is timely. The need to spend up to five hours a week, for a period that may run to a year or more, makes analysis a procedure not lightly to be undertaken ; for what is only moderate remuneration for the analyst may be a heavy financial burden for the patient, though against that may be set the possibility of treatment without interference with the patient’s daily routine. The practical conclusions seem to be that not much can be hoped for in the treatment of the major psychoses-though psycho-analysts may feel justified in persevering with early or mild cases under suitable circumstances, for they must be credited with as much courage as (say) our pioneer surgeons. In the field of the minor psychoses and where psychological disturbances show themselves
in somatic disorders-and it is these that make up so many of the problems of general practice-we can look forward to the continued spread of psychological knowledge that will enable the practitioner to deal with some of them ; others may benefit from more specific treatment according to the bent of the psychotherapist ; and for a residue the combination of need and opportunity will justify recourse to a complete analysis in the hope of restoration to health, happiness, and efficiency. THE HOLMGREN WOOL TEST THE test for colour-blindness by matching skeins of coloured worsted, devised by the Swedish physiologist, A. F. Holmgren (1831-1897), was until recent years the only one known to the medical student. It is now so entirely discredited that the latest text-book for students1 dismisses it in a single line as " of historical interest only." The history of the abandonment of this test is not only curious but distressing, since its chief opponent, Dr. F. W. Edridge-Green, had to struggle for some 15 years before getting a proper hearing for his views in scientific circles, and for another ten years or so before seeing them so far prevail as to eliminate accidents due to defective colour vision whether on land or sea-so far, that is, as this can be effected by Governmental regulation. The story is related in a little book2 published by Dr. Edridge-Green himself, in which he attributes the long delay in the recognition of his work to the Royal Society and especially to what he calls " the Cambridge element" in its decisions. His tone will certainly be blamed by his former opponents and others as egotistical-the author admits himself in the preface that the book cannot do him any good-but it is not easy to foresee how his accusations can be refuted. The history of the matter is shortly this. In 1889 Dr. Edridge-Green took his M.D. degree at Durham, and was awarded the gold medal for a thesis on colour-blindness. Shortly after, a paper of his was communicated to the Royal Society by Sir Lauder Brunton, and he was appointed a member of the International Code of Signals Committee. Meantime the subject was taken up by the Board of Trade, who suggested his name to the Royal Society for inclusion in a committee on colourblindness to which the whole subject was to be referred. That body did not follow the suggestion and issued a report unanimously recommending the Holmgren test for adoption by railway companies, shipowners, and the Board itself. The view of Dr. Edridge-Green, who had just then published a book 1 Mayou’s Diseases of the Eye. edition, 1933, p. 12.
Ridley and Sorsby, fourth
2 Science and Pseudo-Science: the Necessity for an Appeal Board for Science. London : John Bale Sons and Danielsson. 1933. Pp. 104. Price 2s. 6d.
subject,3 was ignored. The permanent appointment as adviser to the Board of Trade, which had been promised to Dr. Edridge-Green if he could make good his views on the unfitness of the wool test, was given to one of his opponents. He however persisted in the struggle and in 1903, on the initiative of the late Mr. Devereux Marshall. a committee of the Ophthalmological Society was appointed to investigate the matter afresh. This committee issued a preliminary report4 in which Dr. Edridge-Green’s contention that some cases of colour-blindness cannot be detected by Holmgren’s test, however skilfully used, was fully confirmed. On the strength of this report Dr. Edridge-Green went to Cambridge, as a research student at his own on
the
expense, to obtain further evidence as to the facts. His reception there was chilly, and his thesis was rejected with the remark that he had done nothing original in colour-blindness. On the other hand, many authorities at Oxford, including the late Mr. Doyne and the late Prof. Gotch, took some trouble to confirm his facts. After 1910 opinion on the subject changed rapidly. In 1911 Dr. Edridge-Green was appointed Hunterian professor of the Royal College of Surgeons, and a committee of the British Association, appointed in 1912, reported in his favour. Questions in Parliament were put and finally, in 1915, the wool test was completely abandoned by the Board of Trade, and a lantern based on Dr. Edridge-Green’s principles was adopted. Five years later he was given the official appointment, as special examiner and adviser to the Board, which the opposition of the Royal Society had debarred him from obtaining 20 years before. All this-and much more-may be read in Dr. Edridge-Green’s manifesto, in which is also included a restatement of his theories about the function of the retinal rods and of the visual purple, which are essentially at variance with those now generally held. Whether or not these views find more support with physiologists in the future does not affect Dr. Edridge-Green’s claim that after many years’ struggle he succeeded in replacing an inefficient by an efficient test for colour-blindness. A director-general of the Naval Medical Service wrote in 1920: "Dr. Edridge-Green has deserved well of his country. He has given us the means of averting appalling disasters by eliminating the colour-blind from control of vessels and fleets at sea." PLEOMORPHIC BACTERIA THE traditional and conventional view that has
prevailed during
this
century has been
that bacteria
organisms of a standard and fairly uniform morphology which multiply by simple fission and have no complicated life-histories. Descriptions of any considerable degree of pleomorphism have always been regarded with suspicion and have been generally attributed-in many instances correctly-to bad technique and impure cultures. A similar scepticism has met the arguments of those who have described developmental and reproductive cycles, though the cumulative evidence has strengthened that some apparently simple bacteria may go through manoeuvres resembling some kind of sexual reproduction. In the current number of the Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology Prof. J. C. G. Ledingham describes some impressive observations on the morphology of the organism of pleuro-pneumonia. This organism is mostly regarded as on the verge of being a virus, on the grounds that infective material would pass are
3 Colour Blindness. International Scientific Series. 4 Trans. Ophth. Soc., 1904, xxiv., 367.
in somatic disorders-and it is these that make up so many of the problems of general practice-we can look forward to the continued spread of psychological knowledge that will enable the practitioner to deal with some of them ; others may benefit from more specific treatment according to the bent of the psychotherapist ; and for a residue the combination of need and opportunity will justify recourse to a complete analysis in the hope of restoration to health, happiness, and efficiency. THE HOLMGREN WOOL TEST THE test for colour-blindness by matching skeins of coloured worsted, devised by the Swedish physiologist, A. F. Holmgren (1831-1897), was until recent years the only one known to the medical student. It is now so entirely discredited that the latest text-book for students1 dismisses it in a single line as " of historical interest only." The history of the abandonment of this test is not only curious but distressing, since its chief opponent, Dr. F. W. Edridge-Green, had to struggle for some 15 years before getting a proper hearing for his views in scientific circles, and for another ten years or so before seeing them so far prevail as to eliminate accidents due to defective colour vision whether on land or sea-so far, that is, as this can be effected by Governmental regulation. The story is related in a little book2 published by Dr. Edridge-Green himself, in which he attributes the long delay in the recognition of his work to the Royal Society and especially to what he calls " the Cambridge element" in its decisions. His tone will certainly be blamed by his former opponents and others as egotistical-the author admits himself in the preface that the book cannot do him any good-but it is not easy to foresee how his accusations can be refuted. The history of the matter is shortly this. In 1889 Dr. Edridge-Green took his M.D. degree at Durham, and was awarded the gold medal for a thesis on colour-blindness. Shortly after, a paper of his was communicated to the Royal Society by Sir Lauder Brunton, and he was appointed a member of the International Code of Signals Committee. Meantime the subject was taken up by the Board of Trade, who suggested his name to the Royal Society for inclusion in a committee on colourblindness to which the whole subject was to be referred. That body did not follow the suggestion and issued a report unanimously recommending the Holmgren test for adoption by railway companies, shipowners, and the Board itself. The view of Dr. Edridge-Green, who had just then published a book 1 Mayou’s Diseases of the Eye. edition, 1933, p. 12.
Ridley and Sorsby, fourth
2 Science and Pseudo-Science: the Necessity for an Appeal Board for Science. London : John Bale Sons and Danielsson. 1933. Pp. 104. Price 2s. 6d.
subject,3 was ignored. The permanent appointment as adviser to the Board of Trade, which had been promised to Dr. Edridge-Green if he could make good his views on the unfitness of the wool test, was given to one of his opponents. He however persisted in the struggle and in 1903, on the initiative of the late Mr. Devereux Marshall. a committee of the Ophthalmological Society was appointed to investigate the matter afresh. This committee issued a preliminary report4 in which Dr. Edridge-Green’s contention that some cases of colour-blindness cannot be detected by Holmgren’s test, however skilfully used, was fully confirmed. On the strength of this report Dr. Edridge-Green went to Cambridge, as a research student at his own on
the
expense, to obtain further evidence as to the facts. His reception there was chilly, and his thesis was rejected with the remark that he had done nothing original in colour-blindness. On the other hand, many authorities at Oxford, including the late Mr. Doyne and the late Prof. Gotch, took some trouble to confirm his facts. After 1910 opinion on the subject changed rapidly. In 1911 Dr. Edridge-Green was appointed Hunterian professor of the Royal College of Surgeons, and a committee of the British Association, appointed in 1912, reported in his favour. Questions in Parliament were put and finally, in 1915, the wool test was completely abandoned by the Board of Trade, and a lantern based on Dr. Edridge-Green’s principles was adopted. Five years later he was given the official appointment, as special examiner and adviser to the Board, which the opposition of the Royal Society had debarred him from obtaining 20 years before. All this-and much more-may be read in Dr. Edridge-Green’s manifesto, in which is also included a restatement of his theories about the function of the retinal rods and of the visual purple, which are essentially at variance with those now generally held. Whether or not these views find more support with physiologists in the future does not affect Dr. Edridge-Green’s claim that after many years’ struggle he succeeded in replacing an inefficient by an efficient test for colour-blindness. A director-general of the Naval Medical Service wrote in 1920: "Dr. Edridge-Green has deserved well of his country. He has given us the means of averting appalling disasters by eliminating the colour-blind from control of vessels and fleets at sea." PLEOMORPHIC BACTERIA THE traditional and conventional view that has
prevailed during
this
century has been
that bacteria
organisms of a standard and fairly uniform morphology which multiply by simple fission and have no complicated life-histories. Descriptions of any considerable degree of pleomorphism have always been regarded with suspicion and have been generally attributed-in many instances correctly-to bad technique and impure cultures. A similar scepticism has met the arguments of those who have described developmental and reproductive cycles, though the cumulative evidence has strengthened that some apparently simple bacteria may go through manoeuvres resembling some kind of sexual reproduction. In the current number of the Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology Prof. J. C. G. Ledingham describes some impressive observations on the morphology of the organism of pleuro-pneumonia. This organism is mostly regarded as on the verge of being a virus, on the grounds that infective material would pass are
3 Colour Blindness. International Scientific Series. 4 Trans. Ophth. Soc., 1904, xxiv., 367.