Colour blindness and defective eyesight in officers and sailors in the merchant marine : a criticism of the Board of Trade tests / by Thomas H. Bickerton.

  • Bickerton, Thomas H. (Thomas Herbert), 1857-1933.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Colour blindness and defective eyesight in officers and sailors in the merchant marine : a criticism of the Board of Trade tests / by Thomas H. Bickerton. 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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    out of line and quitting station by H.M.S. Iron Duke. No one will question the statement that, however much the Iron Duke had sheered out of line, the collision could not have occurred but for the reduction of speed on the part of the Vanguard. But the slowing of the Vanguard was not the initial cause of the accident; it was in itself but the effect of a cause, and we must inquire what it was that led to the slowing, for in that lies the real cause of the disaster. On that point the evidence is very definite ; we find that the slowing of the vessel was a direct consequence of a report by a look-out man that a ship was crossing the bows of the ironclad, and it was to avoid running this ship down that the captain gave the order to slow. And when we find that this look-out man had defective vision, that in evidence he stated ^ that his sight was not good on all occasions, that he had on two or three occasions been treated for defective eyesight, and that the sight of his left eye was a good deal stronger than that of his right, when we .find that of five look-out men placed equally well for seeing this man alone saw the ship; and when again we find Mr Hunt,^ First Lord of the Admiralty, stating from his seat in Parliament that indeed the vessel seemed to be the veritable phantom ship, and again that from the evidence there could be no such ship, are we not justified in coming to the opinion that the ship ahead was indeed but a phantom of this look- out man's disordered vision, and that in his defective vision lay the true cause of the accident ? I fail to see how a case better proving the correctness of our contention, that defective eyesight in sailors is sufficient to, and does, lead to accident, could be found. And, if further corroboration of this view is required, it may be found in a quotation from the Parliamentary report of the speech delivered on this disaster by Lord Brassey,^ which reads as follows:— Was it not unsatisfactory that the men who were placed in the most responsible positions, such as look-out men and signal men, were only ordinary seamen? An ordinary seaman was stationed as look-out man at the top masthead of the •Vanguard,' who had been only eight months in a sea-going ship. The entire management and manasuvring of a ship by ^ Vanguard Court-Martial, p. 22. ' Hamard, 1876, vol. i. p. 1062. » Hansard, 1876, vol. i. p. 1085.