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The early recognition of the importance of night vision by officers in the U. S. Submarine rvice, particularly at the Submarine Base in New London, operated to speed up these research :orts. An observer from the Base while with the British Submarine Service had found them ing a military adaptometer developed by Mr. R. W. Cheshire at the British Admiralty Labora- ries.1 The observer brought back a blueprint of this adaptometer and on June 3, 1941, Rear miral Edwards, then in command at the Submarine Base in New London, issued an order for i dark-adaptation and night blindness testing of the men and officers of the entire command. e order went to Lieutenant-Commander C. W. Shilling and included a request for a report on se observations by July 1, 1941. This order, which is believed to be the first military order reference to night vision examinations in the military services of the United States, exercised ery immediate and continuing influence on the activities of the Medical Research Division at Base and elsewhere, an influence that was indeed important in shaping the formation of the med Services-NRC Vision Committee, under the aegis of which the present report has been ipared. Dr. Berry at the request of the Committee has performed a valuable service in producing 5 report. He has endeavored to compile informative abstracts providing condensed statements the data, findings and suggestions included in the many rapidly executed studies of the period 1-1946. Some readers will, no doubt, wish for more detailed statements concerning some of se investigations, which can, of course, be supplied through correspondence with the Commit - or some other organization that has maintained files. A review of such materials arranged chronologically and representing the efforts of a con- ;rable number of workers in several widely-distributed centers, conveys an impression of c of coordination in research effort. Under conditions of war this is surely to be expected. ^inarily research has a large element of trial and error in it, especially in earlier phases. :n striving for an applied goal that cannot be very .specifically defined the handicap is even ater. Such considerations must not be permitted to frustrate research efforts or to consti- a council of despair. The reader of this report will bear in mind that scientific efforts, to d a classification test that is highly reliable, highly valid, simple, brief, and fool-proof, illy fall somewhat short of the ideal goal. Furthermore it must be remembered that when efforts of the United States group, concerned with night vision and its military applications, .ed their attention toward training methods and procedures rather than short classification s, the results achieved proved to be highly important and practical for our Armed Services form a basis on which to build for the future. SOME COMMENTS ON NIGHT VISION SELECTION TESTS AND PROCEDURES William S. Verplank Dr. Berry is to be congratulated on his careful and thoughtful analysis of the literature on t vision testing which accumulated during the recent war. The mass of the literature, the ations in procedures, both experimental or statistical, the frequently conflicting findings and mmendations, and the inaccessibility of the reports themselves would discourage all but the ; patient, and make impractical, if not impossible, a treatment of a type other than that made r. Berry. Dr. Berry's review and abstracts not only ably and fairly summarize the contents ese reports, but also draws conclusions from them with which the writer is in almost corn- agreement. The most serious omission of the review is that it was evidently impossible or inadvisable to -porate summaries of the work performed in Canada and England, even though it is likely that ; -was not anything contributed by our late allies which might lead to any important change in onclusions which have been drawn from the work incorporated in the survey. Nevertheless, British and Canadians explored a few blind alleys which we did not. A similar review of See Abstracts Nos. 3 and 5 where the term "British Device" is used to avoid the complica- of British classified reports.
