F. C. Donders : in memoriam / W. B.

  • Bowman, W.
Date:
[1891?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: F. C. Donders : in memoriam / W. B. 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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    XVlll time his mticli loved son-in-law, became his assistant in the Labora- tory, and finally, his eminent successor. Bonders continued in these new'circumstances to display the same marvellous productiveness as heretofore, and to animate, by his influence and example, the younger men attracted to him, often from distant countries. He delighted, as he had ever done, to make them taste the joy of becommg themselves the authors of some original work of value, and to engage their interest and help in his own laborious and systematic inquiries into whatever promised to benefit mankind in the sphere of the sciences he was cultivating. •. i j u No better example of this generous ardour of pursuit could be adduced than his method of dealing with the subjects of the Colour Sense and of Colour Blindness, then more and more attracting atten- tion in relation to the public safety. It exhibits very aptly his many- sided excellence. While acquainting himself with the ideas of his predecessors, he first statistically ascertained, with accuracy for him- self, the broader facts, engaging for this the aid of his younger colleagues and pupils. The delicate instruments which he was from time to time contriving in the course of his researches beanng on the theory of the Colour Sense and its defects, as on other subjects ^ere constructed in a special department of his laboratory by the xnechanician Kagenaar, whom he had reared from a yoath and made his friend. His theoretical conclusions, as they were reached, weie published in papers of permanent value.f Meanwhile he was also calHng the attention of the higher officials of the railway and ea serves, of his own and other countries, by all the means withm his power, 0 the responsibilities they lay under for the hves of the com- mrit;, in the matter of Colour Blindness; was frammg rules or Zir I^ceptance, which they might suitably ^^^^^^^^^^ conclusions to their final consequences m P-«*-^|J^^^' f^^^^^^^^ directness, moderation, and good sense, as compe led atten^^^^^^ and assent of administrators and statesmen. And that he might not fan in his immediate object of effecting a present benefit, further Smany years personally -^^^^:~TT^::Z rir :r;rf ixx^aS ^rup^-w the mo. doultful ttances of supposed defect, so a. to P-v-t injus^^.ce to V -1 la nTiH in everv wav facilitating the adoption of the new :ht th^dllertei Ko wonder that his countrymen, * Many of these instruments were exhibited at South Kensington in tlie Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus, 1876. , ^^3-. ^ero weU summarised t His Tiews of that day On Colours and Yj/^^^^CamLLe, August. 1880, by himself in the theatre of the ^^l^^Zfr^ru^^^^ Sir aeorge G-. Stokes being present. See Brit. Med. dou , 1880.