Colorblindness occurs with a higher incidence in males because it is genetically bound to chromosome X. For a woman to be colorblind it is necessary to have the two recessive genes in the X chromosomes, which explains the lower incidence of this limitation in females.

Colorblindness owes its name to the chemist John Dalton (1776-1844), colorblind himself, who was the first person to study this anomaly. There is no cure for colorblindness. Early diagnosis may allow the application of specific educational methods to enable children to better adapt to the decreased capacity of color recognition.