On tune deafness (dysmelodia): frequency, development, genetics and musical background.

With the aid of the Distorted Tunes Test a group of British adults could be established whose melodic aptitude was below a certain level and whom we called tune deaf. They are only a fraction of those popularly called tone deaf. The Distorted Tunes Test is only slightly correlated with pitch discrimination, short term tonal memory or number memory.

Probable common origin of a hereditary fundus dystrophy (Sorsby's familial pseudoinflammatory macular dystrophy) in an English and Australian family.

A genealogical link was established six generations back between a family living in England and Australia, and one of the families reported originally by Sorsby et al (1949) as suffering from autosomal dominant inflammatory macular dystrophy (fundus dystrophy). The onset--in the fifth decade of life--and the progress of the condition, which usually ends in blindness, has been observed in a number of patients and the prodromal development of a colour vision deficiency in some of them confirmed. This defect is fundamentally different from the X-linked colour vision defects and merits further investigation.

Correlated odour threshold bimodality of two out of three synthetic musks.

The odour threshold bimodality for exaltolide described by Whissell-Buechy & Amoore (1973) among American whites is confirmed for a population sample in London. A highly correlated bimodality presumed to be caused by the absence of inactivity of certain receptor sites is shown to exist for another structurally different musk substance, musk ambrette. The thresholds for musk ketone show no bimodality and their correlation with the thresholds for the two other musks is low.