Colour-Blindness and Cirrhosis of the Liver

A Family with Acquired and Inherited Blue-Yellow Axis

“…The 2 men showing an inherited tritano maly also showed past alcoholism. This may strengthen the possibility, as proposed in some studies [Cruz-Coke, 1965;Cruz-Coke and Va rela, 1966;Varela et al, 1969;Sassoon et al, 1970;Adams et al, 1977], of using the tritan defect as a genetic marker of alcoholism. This hypothesis must be verified with other infor mative families.…”

“…In other fields, several authors in the past have hypothesized that tritanopia was associated with a predisposition to alcoholism and might even be used as a marker thereof [Cruz-Coke, 1965;Cruz-Coke and Varela, 1966;Varela et al, 1969;Sassoon et al, 1970;Ugarte et al, 1970;Adams, 1977], Thus, it may be suggested that tritanopia is an etiological heterogeneous disease inherited in some families, but that environmental con ditions such as retinal or optic nerve disease as well as alcoholism or other drug addictions may lead to phenocopies.…”

Relationship of Color Blindness to Alcoholic Liver Damage

“…The difference observed in the prevalence of defects revealed by the HRR test in the first studies of Cruz-Coke [1,2] and CruzCoke and Varela [4] and in Ihe later work by Varela et al [10] referred in table I deserves a special comment. In the first studies by Cruz-Coke [1, [41 the greatest number of error was observed with HRR plate 3.…”

“…In the first studies by Cruz-Coke [1, [41 the greatest number of error was observed with HRR plate 3. In the progression of the studies our group was aware that subjects who had failed in plate 3 were able to see it in a second trial or when they were forced to pay special attention to it.…”

“…A highly significant association between color vision defect and alcoholic liver cirrhosis was reported by Cruz-Coke [1,2) in 77 cir rhotics from :t sample of 900 patients of several common diseases admitted to the medical wards. Color blindness was not found associated to any other common diseases in the 450 male and the 450 female patients studied.…”