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.
87/324 (page 75)
![Secondly, because these investigations have this great advantage—that each single report of a deaf-mute is filled in by a medical man, thus guaranteeing a correct comprehension of each question and its conscientious answer. Thirdly, the majority of the reports were drawn up before the deaf-mutes were eight years old, and many still earlier. This must of course tend to increase their accuracy, but has, on the other hand, the disadvantage that the number of relatives suffering from deaf-mutism, insanity, &c., is too smaU. I have, however, corrected this by other means, especially by making use of the reports of deaf-mutes previously reported {see p. 44) to obtain information as to abnor- malities which appeared in the family at a later period, &c. I cannot, therefore, think otherwise than that the results thus obtained are deserving of atten- tion, for although not entirely new, still they appear in a clearer light, and I hope will give occasion for more extensive researches in the direction indicated. CRETINISM AND STRUMA (GOITRE) IN THE FAMILY OF THE DEAF-MUTE.— BiRCHER has touched upon this subject, and has proved that the endemic form of deaf-mutism which prevails in Switzerland is most frequent in that country in places where struma and the cretinic de- generation related to it are most intense [158, p. 78]. BiRCHER is, however, of opinion that heredity, i.e., struma in the ascending hne, is only a predisposing factor, but that it is territorial conditions which cause the more severe forms of cretinic degeneration, among which he reckons deaf-mutism. The endemic deaf- mutism which appears in Switzerland may, however,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21709968_0087.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
