February 13, 1885. 



SCIENCE 



127 



at dinner some agreeable companion. A con- 

 versation-room could be added, and the place 

 become a general rendezvous for scientific and 

 literaiy men ; and these rooms could be so 

 arranged as to admit, on precious occasions, 

 of being thrown together, so as to banquet a 

 Huxley, a Helmholtz, or a Pasteur in a suit- 

 able place and manner. 



If we look for a suitable name to give to 

 the edifice which shall be the free home of the 

 arts and sciences in Boston, what can better 

 represent its local histoiy, its exalted science, 

 its ' divine ' art, than the name of ' Bowditch ' ? 

 ' Bowditch hall,' then, let it be ; and let those 

 in Boston, and they are many, who honor the 

 sciences and love the arts, make this more 

 than a name, and help the advancement of all 

 these varied institutions at once by securing 

 them a common and a fitting home. The so- 

 cieties can doubtless bear a part of the ex- 

 pense ; but the plan is too large for them to 

 carry out unaided, too fair to fail. What other 

 plan could promise such solidarity of all high 

 interests? What better fitted to restore the 

 ancient prestige of Boston's name? 



IS THERE A CORRELATION BETWEEN 

 DEFECTS OF THE SENSES? 



People sometimes assume that a defect of 

 an}' important sense is balanced to the indi- 

 vidual by the increased perception of the re- 

 maining senses. For instance : it is often 

 thought that deaf persons have better eye- 

 sight than those who hear, and that blind 

 persons have better hearing than those who 

 see. The returns of the tenth census of the 

 United States (1880) concerning the defective 

 classes show clearly the fallacy of such a 

 belief. The} T indicate that the deaf are much 

 more liable to blindness than the hearing, and 

 the blind more liable to deafness than the 

 seeing. 



About one person in every thousand of the 

 population is blind, and one in eveiy fifteen 

 hundred deaf and dumb. Now, if these pro- 

 portions held good for the defective classes 

 themselves, we should expect to find one in a 

 thousand of the deaf-mute population blind, 

 or one in fifteen hundred of the blind popula- 

 tion deaf and dumb : in other words, we should 

 expect to find no more than thirty-four blind 

 deaf-mutes in the country ; whereas, as a mat- 



ter of fact, no less than four hundred and 

 ninety-three blind deaf-mutes are returned in 

 the census. 



In the following table, I., I present an 

 analysis of the doubly and trebly defective 

 classes. The information has been compiled 

 from the published statements of Rev. Fred. 

 H. Wines (who had charge of the depart- 

 ment of the census relating to the defective 

 classes 1 ), supplemented b} T unpublished infor- 

 mation kindly furnished by the census office. 



TABLE I. 



Analysis of the defective classes as returned in the 

 tenth census of the United States {1880). 



Singly defective. 



Deaf and dumb 1 



Blind 



30,995 

 46,721 

 73,370 

 91,133 





















242,219 



Doubly defective. 



Blind deaf-mutes 



Idiotic deaf-mutes 



Insane deaf-mutes 



246 

 2,122 



268 

 1,186 



528 















4,350 



Trebly defective. 



217 



Blind insane deaf-mutes 



30 









247 













246,816 







1 The ' deaf and dumb ' have no other natural defect save that of 

 deafness. They are simply persons who are deaf from childhood, 

 and many of them are only ' hard of hearing.' They have no de- 

 fect of the vocal organs to prevent them from speaking. A child 

 who cannot hear our language with sufficient distinctness to 

 imitate it remains dumb until specially instructed in the use of 

 his vocal organs. In the above table, the ' deaf and dumb ' are 

 therefore classified with those having a single defect. 



In the following tables, II. -VII., I have re- 

 duced these figures to percentages. 



TABLE II. 



Percentage of the population of the United States 

 who are defective. 



Deaf and dumb . . . . 



Blind 



Idiotic 



Insane 



Defective population . . 

 Population not defective 



Total population . . 



Totals. 



33,878 

 48,928 

 76.S95 

 91,959 



49, 



246.S16 



50,155,783 



Percentage. 



0.0675 

 0.0975 

 0.1533 

 0.1S33 



0.4921* 

 99.5079 



1885. 



See American annals of the deaf and dumb for January, 



