Note 47 — Chapter XI · The Special Senses.

“The deleterious effect of tobacco upon eyesight is an acknowledged fact. The Belgian government instituted an investigation into the cause of the prevalence of color-blindness. The unanimous verdict of the experts making the examination was that the use of tobacco was one of the principal causes of this defect of vision. “The dimness of sight caused by alcohol or tobacco has long been clinically recognized, although not until recently accurately understood. The main facts can now be stated with much assurance, since the publication of an article by Uhthoff which leaves little more to be said. He examined one thousand patients who were detained in hospital because of alcoholic excess, and out of these found a total of eye diseases of about thirty per cent. “Commonly both eyes are affected, and the progress of the disease is slow, both in culmination and in recovery.... Treatment demands entire abstinence.”—Henry D. Noyes, Professor of Otology in the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York.