Abstract
IT is well known that the shadows of the retinal blood-vessels may be seen if a pinhole is held in front of the eyes near to the anterior focus and moved from side to side. They are also sometimes seen in a microscope field, though they disappear if the eye is held still and comfortably adapted. During some observations with a monochromator, I noticed that the patterns could easily be seen in the field when blue light was used, but that they could not be seen at all with green light. Further experiments, with about ten observers, showed that most people could see the patterns easily with light of 4078 and 4358 (violet and blue), much less easily with light of 4916 (blue-green) and not at all in the range 5000– 6000 (green and yellow). They could be seen again in the red, but not nearly so easily as in the blue and violet. By removing the prism and substituting a plane mirror, so as to retain the same geometrical arrangement, I found that they could be seen with white light. Dilution of the blue with a little green made the patterns much less clear.
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References
Koster, Archiv Opthalmologie, 41, 1. In view of the fact that Koster's results were in conflict with earlier work, I have repeated some of his observations and confirmed his conclusions.
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DITCHBURN, R. Shadows of the Retinal Blood-Vessels seen by Monochromatic Light. Nature 137, 661 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137661a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137661a0
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