3G6 HISTO&V OF 



and of letters. A person born deaf, may, by time, and siiflScient 

 pains, be taught to write and read, to speak, and by the motions 

 of the lips, to understand what is said to him ;* however, it is 

 - probable that, as most of the motions of speech are made within 

 'the mouth by the tongue, the knowledge from the motion of the 

 lips is but very confined ; " nevertheless, I have conversed with 

 a gentleman thus taught, and in all tlie commonly occurring 

 questions, and the usual salutations, he was ready enough, mere- 

 ly by attending to the motion of the lips alone. When I ven- 

 tured to speak for a short continuance, he was totally at a loss, 

 although he understood the subject, when written, extremely 

 well." Persons taught in this manner, were at first considered 

 as prodigies ; but there have been so many instances of success 

 of late, and so many are skilful in the art of instructing in this 

 way, that though still a matter of some cm'iosity, it ceases to be 

 an object of wonder.f 



* Mr Tliomas Braidwood, late of Edinburgh, was perhaps the first who 

 ever brought this surprising art to any degree of perfection. He began with 

 a single pupil in 1764, and after that period taught great numbers of 

 people bom deaf, to speak distiuctly, to read, to write, to understand figures, 

 the principles of religion and morality, &c. 



t In the Transactions of tlie Royal Society of Edinburgh, Professor Stewart 

 gives an interesting account of a boy born blind and deaf. 



James Mitchell, the son of a clergyman lately deceased, in the county of 

 Nairn in Scotland, was bom on the llth November, 1795. His mother soon 

 noticed his blindness, from his discovering no desire to turn his eyes to the 

 light, or to any bright object; and in early infancy also she ascertained his 

 deafness, from observing that the loudest noises did not disturb his sleep. The 

 deafness was from the beginning complete ; but the defect of sight, as in other 

 cases of cataract, did not amount to a total absence of vision. At the time of 

 life when this boy began to walk, he seemed to be attracted by bright and 

 dazzling colours ; and though every thing connected with his history appears 

 to prove that he derived little information from that organ, yet he received 

 from it much sensual gratification. He used to hold between his eye and 

 luminous objects, such bodies as he had found to increase, by their interposi. 

 tion, the quantity of light ; and it was one of his chief amusements, to con- 

 centrate the sun's rays by means of pieces of glass, transparent pebbles, or 

 similar substances, which he held between his eye and the light, and turned 

 about in various directions 



He early showed an extraordinary acuteness of the senses of touch and 

 smell. When a stranger arrived, his smell immediately and invariably in- 

 formed him of the circumstance, and directed him to the place where the 

 stranger was, whom he proceeded to surreij by the sense of touch. In the 

 remote situation where he resided, male visitors were most frequent- and 

 lliurefore, the first thing he generally did, was to examine whether or not 

 the stranger wore boots ; if so he iinmediatoly went to the lobby, felt lor, 



