Colour-blindness and other defects of sight in some of their medico-legal aspects / by James T. Tudall.

  • Rudall, James T.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Colour-blindness and other defects of sight in some of their medico-legal aspects / by James T. Tudall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    AND OTHER DEFECTS OF SIGHT IN SOME OF their: MEDICO-LEGAL ASPECTS. • The effect of a paper which I lately read before the Victorian Branch of the British Medical Association has been to call forth rejoinders and articles in the public press, in which the real questions at issue were so much obscured that there is no small probability of their being more or less completely lost sight of. That paper was entitled Colour-Blindness and other Defects of Sight, and the intention of it was to show that the Government of this country, while making petty, meddlesome, and irritating regulations, neglected one of its more important duties, by non-interference in the matter under consideration. Certain public bodies were also mentioned as having failed to fulfil their obligations in the same direction. It may be that the Legislature itself declines to admit any direct responsibility to insist that all candidates for posts on railways and passenger ships shall possess sight enough to make them, in this regard, safe to the public in the performance of their duties, and that it rests satisfied with having given power to the different departments (railway and marine authorities, &c.) to make their own regulations as may seem good to themselves. To me it appears that the people have a right to expect the direct protection of the law in all those cases where, by reason of the necessities of modern civilization and of our dwelling together in more or less large com- munities, personal forethought and carefulness are inadequate to ensure personal safety. If Government finds it a duty to prevent the sale of unwholesome or adulterated food or spirituous liquor, to take measures against the introduction of infectious disease, and against its spreading among the popula- tion, how can the same Government divest itself of the respon-