GENERAL MEETING. 49 
of the United States (1880) persons who became deaf under the 
age of sixteen years were returned as “deaf and dumb.” Such 
facts as these give support to the fallacy that deafness, unaccom- 
panied by any other natural defect, is confined to adult life, and is 
specially characteristic of advancing old age. 
So constant is the association of defective speech with defective 
hearing in childhood that if one of your children whom you have 
left at home, hearing perfectly and talking perfectly, should, from 
some accident, lose his hearing, he would also naturally lose his 
speech. Why is this, and why are those who are born deaf always 
also dumb ? 
Fallacies Concerning the Dumbness of Deaf Children. 
The most ingenious and fallacious arguments have been advanced 
in explanation. George Sibscota,* in 1670, claimed that the nerves 
of the tongue and larynx were connected with the nerves of the 
ear, ‘and from this Communion of the vessels proceeds the sympathy 
between the Ear, the Tongue and Larynx, and the very affection of 
those parts are easily communicated one with the other. Hence it 
is that the pulling of the Membrane of the Ear causeth a dry Cough 
in the party; and that is the reason most deaf men * * * are 
Dumb, or else speak with great difficulty ; that is, are not capable of 
framing true words or of articulate pronunciation by reason, of the 
want of that convenient influx of the animal spirits; and for this 
cause also, it is that those who are thick of Hearing have a kind of 
hoarce speech.” 
The value of Sibscota’s reasoning may be judged of by the 
further information he gives us concerning the uses of the Eusta- 
chian tube. “ By this it is,” he says, “that Smoakers, puffing up 
their Bheeks, having taken in the fume of Tobacco, send it out at 
their Ears. Therefore the opinion of Alemaeon is not ridiculous, 
who held that she-Goats did breathe thorough their Ears,” &c., &e. 
It is easy for us to laugh at the fallacies of the past, but are we 
ourselves any less liable to error on that account? The majority 
of people at the present day believe that those who are born deaf 
are also dumb because of defective vocal organs. Now let us examine 
* J have been informed that Sibscota’s work, “The Deaf and Dumb Man’s 
Discourse,” from which the above extracts are taken, is in reality a translation of 
another work by Anthony Densing, published in 1656. 
