Introduction to Physiological Optics The Science of Seeing

Abstract

(1) ENGLISH-SPEAKING scientific workers already owe much to Prof. Southall, since it was he who edited the English translation of Helmholtz's great work on physiological optics. Prof. Southall's aim in the present volume is to give his readers a general introduction to the broad science of light and vision which, without being too prosaic, would be accurate and trustworthy so far as it goes. Every observation dealing either with the physiology of the eye or with its optical properties found a place in Helmholtz's “Physiological Optics”. It was, in fact, a text-book describing the normal working of the organ of sight. Only a rare genius like Helmholtz could make himself a master of both aspects of the subject, and since his time there has been a widening gap between them. It is doubtful whether the term ‘physiological optics’ is to-day a sufficiently descriptive title for a book on vision.

Introduction to Physiological Optics

By Prof. James P. C. Southall. Pp. x + 426 + 3 plates. (London, New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1937.) 21s. net.

The Science of Seeing

By Dr. Matthew Luckiesh Frank K. Moss. Pp. viii + 548 + 1 plate. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1937.) 25s. net.