to restore the Deaf and Dumb to hearing* «* 313 



* 



merit, but of larger dimensions, was introduced; that of Hymly was 

 abandoned ; and a piece of cat-gut, or the end of an India-rubber 

 probe was inserted in the aperture made in the membrane, for the 

 purpose of preserving it : but it was soon found that notwithstand- 

 ing all the efforts of ingenuity and skill, the object to be attained 

 was as distant as ever, Itard indeed invented an instrument, which 

 was in a great measure free from the objections urged against those 

 of his predecessors, since its use was followed neither by cicatriza- 

 tion, nor by dangerous inflammation of the internal ear. Although, 

 with these advantages, he performed the operation of perforating the 

 tympanum in a number of cases of accidental and congenital deaf- 

 ness, he frankly confesses that his success was completely ephem- 

 eral. He has therefore entirely renounced its employment. 



M. Deleau, a young French surgeon, who has made himself as 

 much noted by his bold assertions of the cures of deafness he has 

 performed, when others were confident there were none, as by his 

 ingenuity and perseverance, was not however discouraged by the 

 failure of his predecessors. Having contrived an instrument more 

 complicated in its structure, than any which others had previously 

 used, and which, he alledged, if skillfully employed, would render 

 impossible the obliteration of the aperture in the membrane of the 

 tympanum, he commenced a new series of experiments. The re- 

 sults of twenty five of these, which he deemed most successful, he 

 published in 1822 in a work entitled Memoir e sur la perforation de 

 la membrane du tympan, etc. In reading this essay, it is difficult to 

 avoid the conviction, notwithstanding the constant effort he makes 

 to show the remarkable success he has met with, that even if truly 

 related, it is scarcely worth mentioning. In some cases, to his great 

 disappointment, the aperture closes ; in others, a promising subject, 

 when just about to demonstrate the complete success of his opera- 

 tion, is afflicted with a cold, or some form of disease, and again 

 plunged into his original state of deafness. Sometimes the parents 

 are perverse enough to deny that the hearing of their children is 

 improved, and sometimes the children hear well enough, but utterly 

 refuse to talk ! To judge from the cases before us, he seems to 

 have succeeded in every thing, except restoring his patients to the 

 full and permanent use of the sense of hearing. In this, it is per- 

 fectly evident, he met with no success. He has not recorded a sin- 

 gle instance, in which a patient was so far restored to hearing, as 

 actually to have acquired the use of language. At the same time, 



Vol. XXX.— No. 2. 40 



