Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Deaf-mutism / by Holger Mygind. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![p. 48] declare that the Hebrew race produces about four times as many deaf-mutes as Cathohcs and Pro- testants. These statements are, however, founded on very sHght statistical basis. The same may be said of reports from the district of Cologne, Denmark and Mecklenburg-Schwerin [loi, p. 11, 200, p. 382 and 210, p. 47], all of which tend to prove a greater frequency of deaf-mutism amongst Hebrews. The Prussian and Bavarian statistics, however, embrace much more important figures. In Prussia there were in 1880, 99 deaf-mutes to every 100,000 Evangelical inhabitants, the corresponding number in the Hebrew population being 144 [Guttstadt, 157, p. 208]. The difference was still greater in Bavaria, the rates being 95 and 182 respectively [Mayr, 120, p. 29]. It would seem from the Prussian census of 1880 that the greater frequency of deaf-mutism in the Hebrew population was owing to congenital deafness, there being 34 deaf-born deaf-mutes per 100,000 Evangelical and 65 per 100,000 Hebrew inhabitants. The rates for deaf-mutes with acquired deafness were respec- tively 28 and 32. On the other hand, it is only fair to state, that while m 1882 the Hebrew population of HuAgary was 4-08 per cent, of the whole population, the Hebrew deaf-mutes were only 3-82 of the deaf- mute population [145, p. 796] and that H. Schmaltz found that the Hebrew deaf-mutes in Saxony were comparatively few [i5i, p. 58]; his (H. Schmaltz') figures are, however, small, and he adds that the Hebrew population of Saxony fluctuates greatly. It is, of course, highly improbable that the Jewish faith has anything to do with the frequency of deaf- mutism among its professors. Peculiarities in the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21709968_0035.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)