BIOLOGY. 243 



writes home a letter to his parents every week without assistance ; 

 of course it is imperfect in sentences, but still it contains ideas. 

 He can count to 100, and can add small numbers, like 9 and 8, or 

 27 and 10. He spells some 400 words, reads sentences, and forms 

 sentences. He is 8 years of age now. 11 



Says a correspondent of the " Boston Transcript " : 



'* The exhibitions of the ' School of Deaf-Mutes,' which hare 

 been held in the houses of several gentlemen in Boston and in its 

 vicinity within a few weeks, have forever settled the question of 

 the feasibility of teaching articulation to that class of human beings 

 called deaf-mutes. The word ceases to have the signification 

 that has hitherto been given it to those who have been so fortu- 

 nate as to see the dumb speak. It is as long ago as the time of 

 Philip I., of Spain, since a Spanish physician first discovered the 

 fact that deaf-mutism is due to a defect of hearing only, and not 

 to any deficiency in the organs of speech ; but, strange as it may 

 seem, it is not till the years since 1864 that an organized school 

 for the purpose of instructing them has existed in America. 



*' The exhibition consisted in the spelling and speaking of half 

 a dozen little children, who have not been under instruction quite 

 two years, some of them not one year. The result was shown 

 in the easy conversation of a young lady of 15, who has been 

 taught since 4 years old by her mother and aunt, with no other 

 assistance th.an the report written by the Hon. Horace Maim 

 after his return from Europe in 1843. In that report he described 

 the instruction in articulation with sufficient minuteness to enable 

 a lady to teach her child to speak so admirably, that at home she 

 is scarcely thought of as a deaf child ; and she now attends a 

 school with other young ladies of her own age, and studies and 

 recites in the classes with them." 



The success which has attended the efforts of Miss Rogers, and 

 others, in teaching deaf-mutes to speak, by imitating the position 

 and action of the lips, teeth, tongue, and other organs concerned 

 in articulation, is very satisfactory to those interested in the wel- 

 fare and education of these unfortunate and hitherto almost iso- 

 lated individuals. 



ANIMAL ELECTRICITY. 



Recent experiments have confirmed the theory thaf animal 

 electricity does not owe its origin to the formerly imagined action 

 of the nerves or muscles, but emanates directly from a purely 

 chemical source, the exciting cause being generated by the con- 

 tact of the air with the incipient decomposition of the freshly 

 killed animal. Bearing in mind that a liquid, but very slightly 

 saline, in contact with animal substance is an electrometer, it is 

 easy to perceive that the so-called muscular current is nothing 

 more than the current produced by their contact. To put beyond 

 a doubt the question that a live muscle would generate electricity, 

 which it could not produce when dead, contact has been made be- 

 tween the muscles of a live animal and the wires of a galvanome- 

 ter, without the latter evincing the slightest sign of an electrical 



