DEA 
■tersation whole days with tliose that can 
speak her language. She knows nothing 
that is said to her, unless she see the mo- 
tion of their mouths that speak to her, so 
that in the night they are obliged to light 
candles to speak to her. One thing will 
appear the strangest part of the whole nar- 
ration ; she has a sister, with wliom she has 
practised her language more than with any 
body else ; and in tlie night, by laying her 
hand on her sister’s ftiouth, she can perceive 
by that what she says, and so can discourse 
with her in the dark.” 
It is obseiwable, that deaf persons, and 
several others thick of hearing, hear better 
and more easily if a loud noise be raised at 
the time when you speak to them ; which 
is owing, no doubt, to the greater tension 
of the ear-drum on that occasion. Dr. Wal- 
lis mentions a deaf woman, who, if a drum 
were beat in the room, could hear any 
thing very clearly ; so that her husband 
hired a drummer for a servant, that by this 
means he might hold conversation with his 
wife. The same author mentions another, 
who, living near a steeple, could always 
hear very well if there was a ringing of 
three or four bells, but never else. See 
Dumbness. 
DEAL, a thin kind of fir planks, of great 
use in carpentry : they are formed by saw- 
ing the trunk of a tree into a great many 
longitudinal division.?, of more or less tliick- 
ness, according to the purposes they are in- 
tended to serve. Deals are rendered much 
harder by throwing them into salt water as 
soon as they are sawed, keeping them there 
three or four days, and afterwards drying 
them in the air or sun ; but neither this nor 
any other method yet known, will preserve 
them from shrinking. Deals are imported 
into this country from Christiana, and other 
parts of Norw'ay; from Dantzic, and va- 
rious parts of Prussia; from St. Petersburg, 
Archangel, Narva, Memel, &c. They are 
sold by the piece, or by the standard hun- 
dred, or by the long hundred of 120. A 
standard, or reduced deal, is one inch and 
a half thick, eleven inches wide, and twelve 
feet long. 
DEAN, an ecclesiastical dignitary in ca- 
thedral and collegiate churches, and head 
of the chapter. As there are two founda- 
tions of cathedral churches in England, the 
old and the new, so there are two ways of 
creating deans. Those of the old founda- 
tion, founded before the suppression of mo- 
nasteries, as the deans of St. Paul's, York, 
&c. are raised to that dignity much after 
DEA 
the manner of bishoi>s, the King first send- 
ing his cong6 d'elire, the chapter electing, 
and tlie King granting his royal assent, the 
bishop confirms him, and gives his mandate 
to install him. Those of the new founda- 
tion, whose deanries were raised upon the 
ruins of priories and convents, such as the 
deans of Canterbury, Durham, Ely, Nor- 
wich, Winchester, &c. are donative, and 
installed by virtue of the King’s letters pa- 
tent, without either election or confirma- 
tion. Canonists distinguish between deans 
of cathedral and tliose of collegiate churches. 
The firet, with their chapter, are regularly 
subject to the jurisdiction of the bishop. 
As to the latter, they have usually the con- 
tentious jurisdiction in themselves, though 
sometimes this belongs to them in common 
with the chapter. There are cathedral 
churches Which never had a dean, and in 
which the bishop is head of the chapter, 
and in his absence the archdeacon: such 
are the cathedrals of St. David and Lan- 
daff. There are also deans without a chap- 
ter, as the dean of Battle in Sussex, dean 
of the arches, &c. and deans without a ju- 
risdiction, as the dean of the chapel royal. 
In this sense the word is applied to the 
chief of certain peculiar churches or cha- 
pels. 
Dean and chapter, are the bishop’s coun- 
cil to assist him in the affairs of religion, 
and to assent to every grant which the bi- 
shop shall make to bind his successors. As 
a deanry is a spiritual dignity, a man can- 
not be a dean and prebendary of the same 
church. 
DEATH. Physicians usually define death 
by a total stoppage of the circulation of tlie 
blood, and a cessation of the animal and 
vital functions consequent thereon ; as re- 
spiiMtiou, sensation, &c. 
An animal body, by the actions insepa- 
rable from life, undergoes a continual 
change. Its smallest fibres become rigid ; 
its minute vessels grow into solid fibres, no 
longer pervious to the fluids ; its greater 
vessels grow hard and narrow ; and every 
thing becomes contracted, closed, and 
bound up ; whence the dryness, immobi- 
lity, and extenuation, observed in old age, 
By such means, the offices of the minuter 
vessels are destroyed; the humours stag- 
nate, harden, and at length coalesce with 
the solids. Thus are the subtilest fluids in 
the body intercepted and lost, the concoc- 
tion weakened, and the reparation pre- 
vented ; only the coarser juices continue to 
run slowly through the greater ve.ssels, to 
