Also snowblindness. [Cf. prec.] Blindness or defective vision caused by exposure of the eyes to the glare of snow.
1748. H. Ellis, Voy. Hudson’s Bay, 137. This Invention prevents Snow-Blindness, a very grievous and painful Distemper, occasioned by the Action of the Light, strongly reflected from the Snow upon the Eyes.
1836. Uncle Philip’s Convers. Whale Fishery, 202. The glare of the snow, as they walked, gave them what was called the snow blindness.
1862. Peaks, Passes & Glac., II. 377. ‘Snow-blindness,’ which … is not blindness at all, but merely a painful affection of the eyes.
1895. Westm. Gaz., 11 April, 5/1. There were thirty cases of snowblindness and twenty-six cases of frostbite.
fig. 1877. E. R. Conder, Basis Faith, Pref. p. xiii. The snow-blindness of moral insensibility.
