Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/734

 730 DEAF AND DUMB Deafness is generally incurable. When it comes on gradually, it may be arrested by prompt surgical care, and assiduous cultivation of the habits of attention to sounds and of speech, which are liable to decay; but the most distinguished aurists unite in acknowl- edging its higher degrees to be beyond their art. Attention should rather be directed to its prevention. Congenital deafness, when the result of consanguinity in the parents, is often associated with other bodily and mental in- firmities ; and the maladies or accidents causing adventitious deafness often leave serious effects on the general system. But the mortality among the deaf does not appear to be appreci- ably greater than among others ; on the con- trary, the health record of the American insti- tutions is in general remarkably Mr. History of Deaf -Mute Education. In the earliest ages mention is made of the deaf, but they were considered incapable of receiving education. The Mosaic law merely protected them from wanton insult ; the ordinances of the pundits excluded them from inheritance, but imposed their support on the next heir. At Rome a distinction is found in various laws in favor of those who were not congenitally deaf, and who could write; these were allowed full civil rights, from which all other deaf persons were in a measure excluded. This principle was retained in the code of Justinian, which placed the latter class under guardianship and deprived them of all power to alienate their property. The governments founded on the ruins of the Roman empire preserved its regulations. The very nature of the feudal system made neces- sary the disqualification of the deaf from in- heritance. As late as the time of Elizabeth, Richard, eldest son of the viscount Buttevant in Ireland, was excluded from the succession by reason of his being deaf and dumb. As Sir William Hamilton says, " The dictum of Aris- totle, that of all the senses hearing contributes the most to intelligence and knowledge, was alleged to prove that the deaf are wholly in- capable of intellectual instruction." St. Au- gustine, in the 4th century, declared that deaf- ness made faith impossible, since he who was born deaf could not learn the letters by read- ing which he might acquire faith. Yet Pliny mentions that Quintus Pedius, a relative of Augustus, though deaf from birth, attained to great proficiency in painting. The next at- tempt to educate the deaf and dumb is that re- corded by the Venerable Bede (died 735) of his contemporary, St. John of Beverley, bishop of Hagulstadt (now Hexham), in Northumberland, who taught a dumb man to speak by making the sign of the cross over him. Bede also de- scribed a manual alphabet in his De Loquela per Gestum Digitorum, first printed at Ratis- bon in 1532, the plates in which are probably the earliest illustrations of dactylology extant. Rudolphus Agricola, of Heidelberg (died 1485), in his De Inventions Dialectics, said he had seen an individual deaf from birth who could converse in writing. This was called in ques- tion 50 years later by L. Vives, a Spaniard, but only on the ground of its inherent impos- sibility. Platerus mentioned a deaf man at Basel about 1530, who could do the same, and attended the preaching of the reformer (Eco- lampadius, following the motions of his lips. The impulse given to literary and scientific re- search about this time led to investigation not only of the philosophy of thought and language, but also of the mechanism of hearing and speech, and the classification and mode of for- mation of sounds. One of the most brilliant' and versatile minds of the age, Jerome Cardan of Pavia (1501-'T6), turned his attention to the condition of the deaf, and enunciated this most important principle: "Writing is associ- ated with speech, and speech with thought; but written characters and ideas may be con- nected together without the intervention of words;" and thence declared that " the instruc- tion of the deaf and dumb is difficult, but it is possible." The first systematic attempt to teach the deaf and dumb was made by Pedro Ponce (died 1584), a Benedictine monk of Sahagun in Spain. He taught the two sons of De Velasco, a Castilian noble, and several others, to read and write Spanish and Latin, and to understand Greek and Italian. One of his pupils, he says, received the order of priest- hood, possessed a benefice, and performed the duties of his office in reciting his breviary. A contemporary medical writer records that Ponce " employed no other means than first instructing them to write, then pointing out to them the objects signified by the written char- acters, and finally exercising them in the repe- tition by the vocal organs of the utterances which correspond to the characters;" and Morales says his pupils could both speak and read on the lips with fluency. Contemporary was a second deaf artist, Juan Fernandez Na- varrete, surnamed El Mudo, and called " the Titian of Spain," a title which the anecdotes of him show was well merited. Half a cen- tury later another monk, Juan Pablo Bonet, secretary to the constable of Castile, taught a brother of his patron, who had become deaf at the age of two. This young man was intro- duced to Charles I. of England, during his trip in Spain while prince of Wales, in 1623. Sir Kenelm Digby, who attended the prince, de- clared that he could speak as distinctly as any man whatever, and understand a whole day's conversation, even though the speaker were at a considerable distance ; and also that he imi- tated correctly the pronunciation of words in strange languages, Irish and Welsh, on merely seeing them uttered. Bonet wrote the first formal treatise on the instruction of the deaf, Reduccion de las letras y artes para enseflar d Jiablar d los mudos (Madrid, 1620). He gives clear rules for teaching articulation, but con- siders lip-reading an accomplishment depending entirely on the pupil's quickness of sight. He relied on gestures to explain the meaning of