to restore the Deaf and Dumb to hearing. 315 



Although other distinguished physicians have not coincided with 

 Dr. Wright, in regard to the injurious effects of the operation, they 

 have with great unanimity testified to its inutility. '• Profesor Du- 

 bois,^' says M. Richerand, " has performed the puncture of the 

 membrana tympani four times without success, on subjects aged from 

 thirty to fifty years. This inutility of the operation, proved by the 

 four instances so well authenticated, will tend to make the correct- 

 ness of other observers doubted — at least to show that one should 

 not always promise himself success."* " I entertain, in that res- 

 pect," observes M. Saissy, " the opinion of Professor Richerand, 

 and I will also add, that there are a great many circumstances which 

 may defeat the operation. In other cases, success will be but tem- 

 porary. There will be but few cases in which it will be success- 

 ful."! I" speaking of the operation, M. Berjaud remarks iX " The 

 merited neglect into which it has fallen on the part of the most dis- 

 tinguished of the Paris practitioners, and the judicious opinion long 

 since expressed by Professor Richerand, confirm in a stronger man- 

 ner than any thing that I can say, the impotence of the perforation 

 of the tympanum against congenital deafness, and the discredit into 

 which it is gone, even in the cases of occasional infirmities of the 

 same nature. A most conclusive proof, and one which I ought not 

 to omit, is this ; — that when the operation was so common in France, 

 it was performed on nearly all the deaf-mutes at that time in the 

 Paris Institution, as well as on others who were afterwards admitted, 

 without the least advantage." ■ 



M. Itard, to whom we have alluded as having met with no suc- 

 cess in the perforation of the tympanum, devised a new mode of 

 operation, which seemed for a time to promise success. Having 

 found in two deaf-mutes, who had died within a few months of each 

 other, the internal ear completely obstructed by concretions, com- 

 posed in one, of thick mucus, and in the other, of a matter resem- 

 bling chalk, he inferred that congenital deafness might be produ- 

 ced in certain cases by a material cause, and that this cause might 

 be removed. To do this, he decided on injecting the cavity of the 



* Nosographie chirurgicale, Tome ii, p. 132 ; as ciied by Saissy. 



+ An essay on the diseases of the internal ear, translated from the French, by Na- 

 than R. Smith, M. D., Prof, of Surgery in the University of Maryland. Balti- 

 more, 1829. 



$ Examen critique de cette question ; Dans Vital actuel des sciences mSdicales, 

 peut-on rendre Vouie et la parole aux sourds-muets de naissance ? Paris, 1827. 



