LITMIR.BIZ

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that the female organism is freer from imperfections than the male, and therefore that it is less liable to derangements; also, that being more highly specialized, it is less susceptible to injury under unfavourable conditions; yet, in attempting to explain the reason why so many more male than female infants succumb to the exigencies of birth, he expresses the opinion that the size of the body and “especially of the head” being greater in males, they would be “more liable to be injured during parturition.”

      Among the reasons urged by Mr. Darwin to account for the excess of women over men in all “old-settled” countries, is that of the exposure of grown men to various dangers, and their tendency to emigrate. Doubtless there is more emigration among men than among women, still men do not usually emigrate to a wilderness and rarely to sparsely settled countries. When men emigrate from one civilized country, they usually go to another civilized country; yet in all old-settled countries women are in excess of men. While the dangers to which men are exposed because of their greater physical activity have been many, and the accidents liable to occur from their harder struggle for existence more numerous than those to which women have been subjected, still it would seem that the danger to female life, incident to the artificial relations of the sexes under our present semi-civilized conditions, is more than an offset for that to which men are liable.

      The fact must be borne in mind, however, that the diseases and physical disabilities of women, at the present time, although dangerous to health and life, are not organic, and will therefore disappear as soon as through higher conditions they are allowed the free expression of their own will in matters pertaining to the sexual relation. As the diseases peculiar to the female constitution are not caused by structural defects, but, on the contrary, are due to the overstimulation of the animal instincts in her male mate, or, to the disparity between her stage of development and his, they have not materially injured her constitution nor shortened her average duration of life, neither have they lessened her capacity for improvement.

      With reference to the women of Greenland, Cranz says that while they

      remain with their parents they are well off; but from twenty years of age till death, their life is one series of anxieties, wretchedness, and toil, yet, in spite of all their cares, toils, and vexations the women commonly arrive at a greater age than the men.36

      That the imperfections of the male organism are already beginning to interpose themselves between man and many of the occupations and activities of advancing civilization, is only too apparent.

      Sight, far more than any other sense, is the most intellectual, yet in the development of the visual organs it has been proved that men are especially deficient. Dr. Andrew Willson assures us that “colour-blindness is a condition which is certainly capable of transmission to the progeny. In one family the males alone were affected through seven generations.”

      In an examination which was carried on some years ago under the supervision of Dr. Jeffries, among the pupils of the Boston schools, in which were 14,469 boys and young men, and 13,458 girls and young women, it was found that about one male in every twenty-five was colour-blind, while the same defect among the girls and young women was extremely rare, only 0.066 per cent. of them being thus affected.37

      At a convention held in the city of Chicago for the purpose of organizing an association for educational reform, the teacher of drawing in the St. Paul schools made a statement that “four per cent. of all male pupils were colour-blind, while only one-tenth of one per cent. of female pupils were so affected.” No explanation was offered for this strange fact; indeed, it was pronounced a mystery, “even oculists and surgeons having given it up as impenetrable.”

      That defective vision is beginning to interfere with the activities of men, is shown by the fact that in many instances, in later times, colour tests have been required to determine fitness of applicants for positions in various departments of commercial enterprise. In this country, during the last fifty years, much attention has been given to the subject of visual defects in seamen, railroadmen, and other persons occupying positions of responsibility in which unimpaired vision is an important qualification. In response to a request sent by the German Government through its minister to the Surgeon-General of the United States Army, for statistical and other information on the subject of colour-blindness, Mr. Charles E. Pugh, General Manager of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in September, 1884, sent to William Thomson, M.D., surgical expert for the same company, the following statement:

Total number examined on lines east of Erie	25,158
Colour-blind	481
Defective vision	661

      Of this report Dr. Thomson says:

      The apparently small percentage of colour-blind in this table may be ascribed to the non-application of men who knew their deficiency, and to the fact that men in the service, knowing their defect, would leave the road before examination, and thus escape detection, and be enabled to gain employment on other roads where no examinations are required.38

      In several departments of the national government, attempts have been made to guard against the dangers resulting from imperfect sight. In the examination of recruits, the War Department at Washington, some years ago, issued orders that bits of coloured pasteboard, or “test cards” be used for determining the power of individuals to distinguish objects at a distance, while worsteds of various hues were employed to ascertain their ability to distinguish colour. In the Treasury and Naval Departments were ordered similar examinations, in which the power to distinguish colour was a necessary qualification in the case of all persons seeking employment therein.

      In the examinations ordered by navigation and railroad companies to protect themselves and the public against disaster resulting from imperfect vision in their employees, tests have been made. Among the requirements imposed by law, applying to engineers, brakemen, and firemen, in the State of Connecticut, are the following: “Unobstructed visual field, normal visual acuteness, and freedom from colour-blindness.”

      If Dr. Jeffries’s investigation in the Boston public schools and the report of the officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad are to serve as a criterion in judging of the extent to which impaired vision is developed in men, or if among them one in every twenty-five is defective in the colour sense, the inference seems unavoidable that the proportion of them unfitted for railroad and steamboat service, for military duty, and for various important government positions, must be large. Hence, by these tests alone may be observed something of the extent to which, under the higher conditions which are approaching, the imperfect development in men of this one organ (the eye) may cripple their energies and check those activities which, in many instances, are best suited to their tastes and inclinations.

      Nor is this defective vision developed in men a peculiarity which is confined within the limits of our own country. In Europe, investigations analogous to those instituted in America have been followed by the same or similar results. Until a comparatively recent time this subject has received little or no attention, for the reason that the processes of civilization and the various activities of life have not, hitherto, demanded a correct or highly developed colour sense; but with the requirements of more highly civilized conditions, in vocations demanding more diversified and complicated physical and mental activities, it is plain that man, because of this organic imperfection, must labour under continuous disadvantages. Then add to defective vision his lack of physical endurance, his liability to various organic affections caused by structural defects, and his abnormal appetites which are constantly demanding for their gratification the things which are injurious to his mental and physical constitution, and we are enabled to judge, to some extent, of the obstacles against which, in the struggle for existence, the future man will find himself obliged to contend.

      Not only is man’s sense of sight less perfectly developed than is woman’s, but his sense of touch is less acute. The hand, directed as it is by the brain, is the most completely differentiated member of the human structure. It may almost be said of the hand, that it assists the brain in performing its functions. The female hand, however, is capable of delicate distinctions

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