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Papers.—1. “A Case of Coloured Hearing,”
In vol. xxxii of the “Contemporary Science Series,” entitled “Hallucinations and Illusions,” may be found a short account of the some-what obscure phenomenon of coloured hearing. For the benefit of those to whom the subject may be unfamiliar, I may explain that coloured hearing consists of the involuntary mental association of colours with sounds, or, to quote the scientific definition in Dr. Forel's work on hypnotism, “There is still one other sight, a mental vision—viz., the repercussion of these optical stimuli of the visual sphere in other associated areas of the cortex of the cereburm. There are people who are able to see sounds coloured, inasmuch as-they always associate certain colours with certain sounds or vowels.” The special colour-sensations associated with particular sounds always remain constant in the same individual, but the relation is purely individual, and not referable to any known general law.
Letters of the alphabet (more particularly the vowel-sounds), notes of musical instruments, and numerals call up colour-sensations in the minds of persons possessed of this faculty, whether the sound of the letters, &c., be actually heard or only mentally presented.
It is found that a certain percentage of persons is possessed of this peculiarity, and that it is sometimes hereditary.
This sensation is designated a photism or chromatism by Professor Gruber, who has conducted some experiments with several subjects of the “hallucination,” as it is described in the first-mentioned work. He tells us that few people can remember when their chromatisms began; and that deep tones or vowel-sounds seem generally to be associated with dark colours, and sharp tones or high-sounding vowels with lighter-colour sensations. The coloured alphabet which I have prepared in accordance with my own observations will show corroboration of the latter statement, the letter O being associated with deep-blue, which I and E are white and yellow respectively. Letters of the alphabet and numerals are, in my experience, productive of colour-impressions, but there are no distinct sensations with regard to music. Of the letters, the colours of the vowels are most promment, a single vowel in a word often producing a colour-impression which will subordinate all the colours of surrounding consonants to itself. Thus, in considering the word “stop,” the dark-blue of the vowel O predominates over all the other colours. The colour of a consonant is frequently modified by the colour of an adjoining vowel; in fact, the various colours represented by the different letters composing a word tend to modify each other in a greater or less degree. For example, in the word “book” the dark-blue associated with the letter O is the pre-dominating
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colour in the word. The letter B is in my mind connected with varying shades of green. As the adjoining vowels are dark in hue, the green of the B will be dark-bluish-green. On the other hand, in the word “been” the two E's, which are yellow, cause the B to appear of vivid leaf-green. In another word, “bite,” the juxtaposition of the I (white) renders the B dull-green in colour.
I may add that, while some persons experience coloured hearing as a fully developed objective sensation, I have it merely as a spontaneous mental association of colour with sound.
The account from which I obtained some information on this subject concludes with the statement that it is doubtful whether the occurrence is pathological or physiological. While I have made some conjectures, I will not trouble you with these, merely mentioning the fact that, while my own sense of colour is not, so far as I know, defective, I come of a family in which several cases of colour-blindness exist.
2. “On Family Marks,” by Joshua Rutland; communicated by T. W. Kirk.
The following curious case of heredity has recently come under my notice. One of my neighbours, Mrs. R. S., has on the left side of her head, close to the ear, a small opening. Into this opening a pin can be inserted head foremost about ½ in. without causing pain. From the opening a small quantity of wax-like matter is at times discharged. Mrs. S. inherited the opening referred to from her mother, Mrs. M., now residing at Nebraska, U.S.A. In addition to the opening described, Mrs. M. has in the white of the left eye a round dark spot resembling a second pupil, but smaller than the true pupil. The second pupil and the opening near the ear Mrs. M. inherited from her mother, who died in Denmark. Of Mrs. S.'s large family, only one son, N., inherited the ear-opening; but he has two openings—one close to the left ear, like his mother, and the other close to the right ear. His infant son, three months old, has the opening near the left ear. Another of Mrs. S.'s sons, G., is the father of twin boys, one of whom has inherited the opening near the left ear. Mrs. S.'s daughter, Mrs. R., has two pupils in the left eye, like her grandmother, but she has not got the ear-opening. These are all the members of the family about whom I can get trustworthy information, though probably others have the family marks. It can be seen that for five generations, commencing with Mrs. M.'s mother, these marks have come down, missing the children and reappearing in the grandchildren. Mrs M. and her granddaughter have both good sight in the left as well as in the right eye. The marks referred to do not affect them.
Dr. C. Monro Hector said that a case similar to the one described had recently come under his own notice.
3. “On Right-sidedness,” by Joshua Rutland; communicated by T. W. Kirk (p. 339).