CHAPTER VI 

 THE SENSE OF HEARING 



REPEATEDLY in the foregoing chapters mention has been 

 made of the dancer's irresponsiveness to sounds, but it has 

 not been definitely stated whether this peculiarity of behavior 

 is due to deafness or to the inhibition of reaction. This chap- 

 ter is concerned with the evidence which bears upon the 

 problem of the existence of a sense of hearing. Again I 

 may be permitted to call attention to the observations of 

 other investigators before presenting the results of my own 

 experiments and stating the conclusions which I have reached 

 through the consideration of all available facts. 



By the results of various simple tests which he made, 

 Rawitz (25 p. 238) was convinced that the adult dancer is 

 totally deaf. He did not experiment with the young, but he 

 says he thinks they may be able to hear, since the necessary 

 structural conditions are present. This guess which Rawitz 

 made on the basis of very indefinite and uncertain knowledge 

 of the histology of the ear of the young dancer is of special 

 interest in the light of facts revealed by my own experiments. 

 Unfortunately the study of hearing made by Rawitz is casual 

 rather than thorough, and although it may turn out that 

 all of his statements are justified by his observations, the 

 reader is not likely to get much satisfaction from his discus- 

 sion of the subject. 



Inasmuch as he could discover no structural basis for 

 deafness, Panse (23 p. 140) expressed himself as unwilling 



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