XIV. An account of persons who could not distinguish colours. By Mr. Joseph Huddart, in a letter to the Rev. Joseph Priestley, LL.D F.R.S

Abstract

When I had the pleasure of waiting on you last winter, I had hopes before now of giving you a more perfect account of the peculiarity of vision which I then mentioned to you, in a person of my acquaintance in the North: however, if I give you now the best I am able, I persuade myself you will pardon the delay. I promised to procure you a written account from the person himself, but this I was unfortunately disappointed in, by his dying suddenly of a pleurisy a short time after my return to the country. You will recollect I told you that this person lived at Mary-port in Cumberland, near which place, viz . at Allonby, I myself live, and having known him about ten years have had frequent opportunities of conversing with him. His name was Harris, by trade a shoe-maker. I had often heard from others that he could discern the form and magnitude of all objects very distinctly, but could not distinguish colours. This report having excited by curiosity, I conversed with him frequently on the subject.