312 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO \6QS. 



3 minutes, trembling as soon as the oil was dropped into his mouth. There 

 are people who get their bread by showing these serpents ; they find them in 

 hot days near rocks, and putting a slick near the head, they take them up 

 carefully by the neck, and put them into a leather bag. 



^ Method of imlnicling Persons Deaf and Dumb to speak, and understand a 

 Language. By Dr. iVallis. N° 243, p. 353. 



Teaching deaf jjersons to speak, or to speak plain, is to be done by direct- 

 ing them to apply their tongue, lips, and other organs of speech, to such 

 postures and motions, as are proper lor the formation of such and such sounds 

 respectively, as are used in speech. And then the breath, emitted from the 

 lungs, will form those sounds ; whether the person speaking hear himself, or 

 not. Of which respective formation, of all sounds commonly used in speech, 

 I have given a full account, in my Treatise De Loquela ; prefixed to my Grammar 

 of the English tongue, published in the year 1653: in pursuance of which, I 

 attempted the teaching of deaf persons to speak. 



For the other part of the work, to teach a language, it is necessary in the first 

 place, that the deaf person be taught to write: that there may be somewhat to 

 express to the eye, what the sound of letters represents to the ear. It will 

 next be right, as pen and ink is not always at hand, to teach him how to design 

 each letter by some certain place, position, or motion, of a finger, hand, or 

 other part of the body; which may serve instead of writing. As for instance, 

 the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, by pointing to the top of the five fingers; and 

 the other letters, b, c, d, &i.. by such other place or posture of a finger, or 

 otherwise, as shall be agreed upon. After this, a language is to be taught the 

 deaf person, by such methods as children are at first taught, except that the 

 children learn sounds by the ear, but the deaf person is to learn the marks of 

 those sounds by the eye. But both equally signify the same things or notions; 

 and are equally of arbitrary signification. It is then most natural, to furnish 

 him by degrees with a nomenclature, containing a competent number of names, 

 of things common and obvious to the eye, that you may show the thing answer- 

 ing to each name ; and these should be arranged under convenient titles, and 

 placed under them in several coUuTms, or other orderly situation in the paper, 

 as by their position best to express to the eye their relation to each other. As, 

 contraries or correlatives, one over against the other ; sul)ordinates or appurte- 

 nances, under their principals : which may swerve as a kind of local memory. 

 Thus, in one paper, under the title Mankind, may be regularly placed man, 

 woman, child, boy, girl ; and, if you jjlease, the names of some known per- 

 sons, with s])aces left to I)e sii[)plied with other like names or words, as after- 

 wards there may be occasion. 



