Daltonism
Daltonism is color blindness. This malady pertaining to vision is one’s inability to perceive colors.The person who is color-blind cannot distinguish certain colours, especially the red- green.This word is an eponym derived from the name of the chemist John Dalton ( British, 1766 – 1844 ).He was color-blind ,but in spite of his handicap he proposed scientific theories on matter and atom.He was the first scientist to study color blindness.
In 1793, he published a book titled, “Extraordinary facts relating to vision of colors”. His older brother Jonathan was also color-blind.
Dalton was a school teacher and actively pursued research with great interest in chemistry, physics, and mathematics. In addition, he was interested in meteorology.
Color blindness is a genetic defect and difficult to cure. The medical fraternity named this defect daltonism in honour of John Dalton, who was the first to study scientifically this problem.
R.Gopalan