Color blindness, or color blindness, is an eye disease in which a person perceives colors differently than any other person with normal vision. It is believed that this phenomenon was first described in 1794 by the English chemist John Dalton in whose honor the disease got its name. John Dalton, like many other color blind people, found out about his illness only at the age of 26. For a dinner party, he sewed a gray camisole, in which he came for the evening. However, John was very surprised when he discovered that people around him instead of the gray color of his camisole see bright burgundy. Despite his rejection, the scientist lived to 78 years. Two of his brothers also suffered from color blindness and did not see the color red. Due to this, Dalton described in detail his illness and color perception of the world with his own eyes. 

Color perception

Each person’s retina contains 132 million receptor cells that play the role of photosensitive elements: 125 of them are responsible for the perception of light and image contrast, and 7 million cones are responsible for all color nuances. These cones consist of color-sensitive pigments: one of the pigments is sensitive to red, the second to green, the third to blue. Correct vision of color is ensured by the signals from all three pigments entering the brain.

People endowed with normal color perception are called trichromats and have all three pigments in cones. With color blindness, a person is not able to distinguish one of the colors, since he does not have a third pigment in the retina. There are also cases when a person has all three pigments in the retina, but the activity of one of them is reduced. Such people are called abnormal trichromats. The most common defect is the perception of red. According to statistics, 8% of white men and 0.5% of white women have a red-green visual impairment.

People with a blue pigment defect are quite rare, along with those people whose color vision is completely absent and the perception of the world is carried out in black and white.

Such close attention to color blindness was due to the train crash that occurred, when the driver, being color blind, could not distinguish the red sign.

Causes of Color Blindness

Color blindness is not a disease acquired during a person’s life – it is a congenital visual impairment that is transmitted in different forms from generation to generation. People with color blindness see quite well, but in a slightly different way than the rest, and they may not be afraid that because of color blindness, vision will deteriorate over time.

The cause of color blindness is molecular defects in the genes that are responsible for the synthesis of photosensitive pigments. So that a parent suffering from color blindness can find out whether the pathology will be transmitted to the unborn child, he needs to contact a genetic consultation and undergo testing.  

Diagnosis and treatment of color blindness

Doctors identify color blindness in a patient using special polychromatic Rabkin tables. Each table has many colored dots and circles, the same in brightness, but different in color. Thus, a person with ordinary vision, in contrast to color blind people, can distinguish a number or a geometric figure in the table, when, like a person with a pathology, all circles seem the same.

Color blindness refers to diseases that are not treated. The only way to improve the situation is to use special glasses – the latest development of scientists who contain built-in video cameras, computer image processing and its output to LCD eyepieces.