“Color sense in different races of mankind”

Abstract

The evolution of the color sense is very imperfectly understood. Scarcely any direct evidence is at hand regarding the color sense of animals, though some indirect evidence that various classes distinguish colors is afforded by the facts of protective and attractive coloration.¹ We do know from human experience, that there exists a form of color vision (red-green blindness) which is less complete than the usual human type, and as it appears not to be pathologic, it may be a reversion. In the absence of subhuman data, it is of some value to ascertain whether those races of mankind which seem to represent the more primitive stages in human development are especially subject to color-blindness. The results of various authors go to show that other races are perhaps even less subject to it than the white race. Some previously untested races were examined by the author in association with Mr. Frank G. Bruner, under the Anthropological Department of the St. Louis Exposition. Of 252 adult male Filipinos (including Christians and Moros), 14 were red-green blind, or 5.6 per cent.; of 75 males of the “wild tribes” of the Philippines (Igorots, Tinguianes and Bagobos), 2 were red-green blind, or 2.7 per cent.; of 13 male Negritos, none was color blind. Special interest attaches to the Negritos, as they probably represent a more primitive type of man than has previously been tested in this way; and though the individuals examined were too few in number to enable the author to establish the percentage of color-blindness among them, the absence of color-blindness from the 13 males tested (as well as from the women) shows certainly that color-blindness is not universal among them, and very likely no more prevalent than among more developed races.