Treatise on the ear : including its anatomy, physiology and pathology : for which the author obtained a gold medal in the University of Edinburgh / by Joseph Williams.

Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Treatise on the ear : including its anatomy, physiology and pathology : for which the author obtained a gold medal in the University of Edinburgh / by Joseph Williams. 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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    dumb; of these only thirty in every hundred are supposed to be capable of being taught, the rest being too young, too old, or too much diseased in other parts, besides the organ of hearing. Boys born deaf, are said to be more numerous than girls. The director of the school at Vienna (Mr. May) stated this difference to be in the proportion of four to one.^ This seems opposed to general experience, and I do not think any inference can be drawn from such a statement; as the report was taken from the numbers of a school, and not of a particular tract of country. It is completely nullified by the exact statistical account of the deaf and dumb in the duchy of Brunswick. [See p. 229.] We must not reg-ard all cases of the deaf and dumb as congenital, inasmuch as they may have been de- prived of the sense of hearing, during very early childhood, either by accident, fever, measles, &c., and deafness frequently arises during dentition. It is not uncommon for persons in the same family to be born deaf, but they are always of the same sex. Kramer mentions the circumstance of healthy parents having five daughters and six sons. The sons were all born deaf, and the daughters without exception heard perfectly well.'^ A physician resident at Mar- seilles, knew a family consisting of six children; the first was born deaf, the second heard perfectly; the 6 Edinb. Med. Journal, vol. vii. p. 63. 7 Bennett's Translation, Lend. 1837. p. 295. It is a curious fact, that white cats with blue eyes are said to be always deaf, and that should the mother produce a litter of kittens, and any of them have a single speck of colour on their fur, they as invariably possess the usual faculty of hearing, but if perfectly white they are then invariably deaf.—See Magazine of Natural Hist. No. 2.