272 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 252 



verdict must be passed. There is a lack of unity in the pages, and 

 a much more serious lacl< of appreciation of the best literature 

 (even that in English) on the subject. Books of this order have 

 been frequently published, and have done much good in arousing 

 the public to an intelligent interest in the lives of the defective 

 classes. In 1835 Mr. John R. Burnett published at Newark, N.J., 

 his ' Tales of the Deaf and Dumb,' which, though introducing much 

 irrelevant matter, shows a deeper insight into the mental condition 

 of the deaf-mute than the pages of Dr. Seiss ; and, best of all, the 

 ' Lost Senses," by Kitto, contains a highly valuable description of the 

 world, from the deaf man's point of view, by an eminent and ob- 

 servant scholar. Neither of these sources seems to have been 

 utilized by the author. Again, in discussing intermarriage of near 

 relatives as a cause of deafness, the author leaves the most interest- 

 ing contribution to the subject (the memoir of Prof. Graham Bell) 

 with a merest notice, though this is one of the topics to which he 

 devotes most space. 



The statistical element in the volume is as good as any thing we 

 have. There are about thirty-five thousand deaf-mutes in the 

 United States, but the defective method of taking the previous sta- 

 tistics makes it impossible to say whether deaf-mutism is on the 

 decrease or not. The most probable average ratio of deaf-mutes to 

 the population at large is r to 1,500, and this would give about a 

 million of deaf-mutes in the world ; and yet (in the United States at 

 least, and probably elsewhere) the deaf form the smallest element 

 of the defective classes, including under this term the blind, deaf, 

 idiotic, and insane. Deafness, however, is a disease of childhood, 

 and the number of deaf persons of school age is double that of the 

 blind. It is interesting to add that there are about six deaf males 

 to five deaf females, and that the notion that the deaf have an im- 

 munity from other diseases of the sense-organs is not borne out. 

 Among the causes of deafness the intermarriage of near relatives is 

 regarded as a very serious one. While some authors look upon 

 such marriages as harmless when both parties are of a sound con- 

 stitution, yet the bulk of the evidence is decidedly opposed to such 

 unions, and finds in their offspring an undue proportion of nervous 

 defects of all kinds. That the intermarriage of deaf-mutes is a fer- 

 tile source of the increase of deaf-mutes is now generally admitted, 

 and some regard one-third of all cases as due to this origin. A 

 very large number of deaf-mutes are deaf from birth ; and of those 

 who become deaf, a very large percentage lose their hearing in the 

 first, second, or third year of life. After this the liability to deaf- 

 ness rapidly decreases. 



The relation between deafness and muteness is not a necessary 

 one : it is because the ear educates the vocal mechanism that deaf 

 persons become mute, not because their vocal organs are not cor- 

 rectly formed. This fact makes it possible to teach the deaf to 

 vocalize ; and the system by which they are taught to read the 

 sounds on the lips of the speaker, while they answer by speaking 

 as well as they can, is already the most widely adopted, and seems 

 destined to supersede the finger-alphabet for general purposes. 

 The question whether the blind or the deaf suffer the worse afflic- 

 tion has often been asked ; and it is not generally known that on 

 this point there is quite an agreement, among those most compe- 

 tent to judge, in favor of the blind. The deprivation of spoken 

 language is in our civilization the most serious deficiency. The un- 

 sympathetic nature of the deaf as contrasted with the cheerfulness of 

 the blind, as well as the fact that eminent blind persons are much 

 more numerous than eminent deaf ones, speak for blindness as the 

 less serious loss. 



The historj' of the treatment of the deaf-mutes is an interesting 

 one. Among savages they were generally considered as monsters, 

 and put to death ; for a long time they were held on a par with 

 idiots ; and the idea of their being educable was regarded as pre- 

 posterous. When it is remembered that the first institute for their 

 instruction was founded in 1765, and that the demonstration not 

 long before of a deaf-mute's capacity to read was regarded as a 

 miracle, one appreciates the truly modern mode of regarding them. 

 It is not many years ago that they were first regarded as having the 

 right of citizenship and other legal privileges. 



While Dr. Seiss has thus put together in a shape likely to attract 

 readers some useful information, he has left the field free for a really 

 valuable and scientific treatise on deaf-mutism. Such a treatise 



should contain a full account of the way in which they were re- 

 garded by different peoples, a history of the methods used to edu- 

 cate them, a psychological analysis of their state as illustrated by 

 recent research, with special attention to their language, a good 

 account of the physiology and pathology of deafness, and as much 

 biographical matter as is really authentic. Such a general cyclo- 

 paedia of deaf-mutism, and of blindness too, would be a great addi- 

 tion to the scientific appreciation of a most interesting portion of the 

 human species. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The Aristotelian Society of London has issued a very attrac- 

 tive programme of its winter work. The president, Mr. S. H. 

 Hodgson, read a paper entitled ' The Unseen World ' on Nov. 7, 

 and the subsequent meetings are to be devoted to the following 

 subjects : Nov. 21, ' The Psychological Laboratory at Leipzig,' Prof. 

 J. M. Catteli ; Dec. 5, ' Is Mind Synonymous with Consciousness? ' 

 the president, Messrs. S. Alexander, Bernard Bosanquet, D. G. 

 Ritchie, and G. F. Stout ; Dec. ig, ' Philosophy during the Period of 

 the Renaissance,' Miss C. E. Plumptre; Jan. 9, 1888, 'Darwinism 

 in Relation to Design,' G. J. Romanes; Jan. 23, ' The Philosophical 

 Importance of a True Theory of Identity,' Bernard Bosanquet ; 

 Feb. 6, ' Wundt's Theory of Apperception,' J. S. Mann ; Feb. 20, 

 'The Real Essence of Religion,' Rev. E. P. Scrymgour ; March 5, 

 short papers on various subjects ; March 19, ' Attention,' G. F. 

 Stout ; April 9, ' Heraclitus and his Philosophy,' Dr. Clair J. Grece ; 

 April 23, ' Conscience Theories,' Pasco Daphne ; May 7, ' What is 

 the Distinction between Desire and Will ? ' Professor Bain, W. R. 

 Sorley, J. S. Mann ; May 28, ' The Demarcations and Definitions of 

 the Subject Sciences,' Professor Bain. 



— The second number of the Journal of Morphology will appear 

 about the first of January. The endeavor has been to produce, 

 without counting expense or effort, a journal that will stand in the 

 very first rank, and worthily represent its department of American 

 science. The first number has been out long enough to be passed 

 upon by the scientific public, and we think we may say without 

 hesitation that the verdict has been as favorable as could possibly 

 have been desired. Professor Mark of Harvard University writes, 

 " The first number of the Journal of Morphology, so anxiously 

 awaited by zoologists, seems to me to surpass in every way the ex- 

 pectations even of those who have had the highest hopes for its 

 success. Evidently no pains have been spared by either editor or 

 publisher to make it first class. Every one in the country interested 

 in zoology will be justly proud that at last we possess a zoological 

 magazine which is equal to the best European publications."' 

 As a specimen of foreign opinion, we may quote from Prof. J. B. 

 Carnoy of Louvain, Belgium : " This new review is splendid. I 

 congratulate you sincerely on having treated science as it deserves." 

 Of course, the expense of such a publication is very great, and the 

 circulation necessarily limited ; but it is, of course, very desirable 

 that the journal should be self-supporting. All interested should 

 at once send in their subscriptions to Ginn & Co. 



— At a meeting of the Engineers' Club of St. Louis recently. 

 Professor Nipher exhibited a steam-pipe 5 feet long and 6 inches in 

 diameter, one end of which had been closed with a plain cast-iron 

 cap. The cap of the pipe had been blown off bodily, without being 

 broken up. The break extended around the cap just at the end of 

 the pipe which had been screwed into it. He explained that the 

 cap had been blown off by a ball from a Winchester rifle. This 

 was done by standing the pipe vertically on its closed end, filling it 

 with water, and firing vertically down upon the water. The floor 

 upon which the pipe stood had yielded, and the cap of the pipe had 

 been forced down so quickly that the pipe could not follow, so 

 that the cap and pipe parted company. To force this cap off re- 

 quired a force of between 135,000 and 150,000 pounds, or about 70 

 tons. The ball was a 38-caliber ball, and the charge was the 

 ordinary one of 40 grains of F. G. Dupont rifle-powder. The pipe 

 weighed, exclusive of the cap, 96 pounds, and the cap weighed 9 

 pounds. The ball was greatly flattened by the water, but had not 

 battered against the bottom of the pipe. Other experiments 

 showed that the ball was stopped by the water by the time it had 

 reached a depth of one foot. 



