On an Appearance of Colour Spectra to the Aged

Abstract

DURING the latter months of my eighty-ninth year my attention became directed to a circular colour spectrum which appeared to surround any bright light to which my eyes were directed. The condition was new to me. I had never read of its occurrence, and had never heard it complained of by a patient; but on making inquiry of two distinguished ophthalmologists of large experience I found that they had been consulted in similar cases, one of them only by octogenarians, while both mentioned examples in which the appearance had excited grave apprehension and distress. But nothing, so far as I can ascertain, has appeared in print upon the subject; and I am inclined to attribute my own lack of experience with regard to it to the fact that I retired from practice fifteen years ago, and that domestic lighting by electricity, which supplies conditions very favourable to the production of the appearance in question, has in the meantime become increasingly prevalent. I will endeavour to describe what I see.