318 On the late efforts in France and other parts of Europe 



of the wonderful cures alledged to have been performed. Them- 

 selves physicians and surgeons, and many of them distinguished for 

 their knowledge of the anatomy and diseases of the ear, they were 

 too well acquainted with the little success which had attended 

 the efforts of others, and with the intrinsic difficulty of the subject, 

 to believe that it had all at once been so entirely surmounted, that 

 henceforth deafness would be as easy of cure as other diseases. In 

 reply to the numerous cases of restoration to hearing which M. De- 

 leau was constantly publishing, they affirmed that some of his ope- 

 rations were precisely such as had been repeatedly performed before 

 him, with not the least success ; and that others were anatomically 

 impossible. They complained that no information was given of the 

 condition of the patients after the operation ; and denied, in short, 

 that any cures had really been effected. In answer to these objec- 

 tions, he seems to have relied in a great measure upon his apparent 

 success in the case of a boy named Trezel. As this case excited 

 great interest at the time (1825) both in England and on the con- 

 tinent, we present the report of the committee of the Academy of 

 Sciences nearly entire. 



" Claude-Honore Trezel, at this time ten years of age, born at 

 Paris, of poor parents, was of that class of the deaf and dumb which 

 cannot hear the loudest noises nor the most violent explosions. His 

 countenance had little expression ; he dragged his feet in walking, 

 and his gait was tottering. He did not know how to wipe his nose, 

 and he made his principal wants known by a certain number of signs. 



" Nothing remarkable occurred during the operation, which is 

 very simple and by no means new. It consisted in the injection of 

 liquids into the Eustachian tube, by means of a small flexible sound. 

 The first few days after the development of hearing, was a season 

 of continual delight to the child. Every kind of noise gave him 

 inexpressible pleasure, and he sought for them with great eagerness. 

 It was not, however, till after some time that he perceived that 

 speech was a means of communication : this he still attached not to 

 the sounds that issued from the mouth, but to the movement of the 

 lips. Accordingly, for some days, he thought that an infant of sev- 

 en months old spoke, because he saw the movements of the lips. 

 He was soon taught his* error, and informed that it was only to the 

 sounds that importance belonged. It happened, unfortunately, that 

 he heard a magpie pronounce some words, — then generalizing this 

 fact, he thought that all animals could articulate, and actually en- 



