DEAF AND DUMB. at the last census it was 528 per million. The largest proportion of deaf and dumb in every million is in the north and north-western divisions, whilst the smallest number is in the south division. The greatest numbers of deaf and dumb per million occur in Aberdeen, where there are 126; in Forfar, 144; in Renfrew, 220; in Edinburgh, 363; and in Lanark, 427. It is more than probable that the proportion of deaf and dumb in Aberdeen, Forfar, Edinburgh, and Lanark, stands so high on account of schools for the deaf and dumb being situated in towns in those counties. Of the total number of 2142 deaf and dumb in Scotland, 1078 were born deaf, and 1064 were not so born. There were 1149 of the male sex, and 993 of the female sex. Deaf-mutism is an affection of early life chiefly. Thus in Scotland, between birth and 20 years of age, there are 826 cases of it-1 in every 211 persons under that age is a deaf-mute. After that age, there is a steady decline in the number. The number of deaf-mutes enumerated in England and Wales was 13,295, of whom 498 were under 5 years of age, being in the proportion of 141 per million children at that age, whereas the proportion in the next age-period, 5 and under 15 years, was 590 per million; and by correcting the numbers in the first age-period so as to get the same proportion, we have 2077 probable deaf-mutes under 5 years of age, and a total of 14,874 at all ages. This is in proportion of 573 deaf-mutes per million persons enumerated, or 1 in 1746 persons. The proportion in 1871, after similar correction for the first age-period was 572 deafmutes per million persons enumerated, or 1 in 1748. It appears, therefore, that the proportion of the population suffering from deaf-mutism remained practically unaltered between the two last censuses. It by no means necessarily follows from this, that no improvement took place in the course of the decade, as on the one hand there may be increased longevity, and on the other there may be a diminished number of children born deaf. Deaf-mutism is much more common among the natives of the mountainous parts of England and Wales than elsewhere; for though Montgomery has the least number in proportion to its population, yet of the ten counties with the highest proportion, six are Welsh counties, and another is Westmoreland. Some 37 per cent. of deaf-mutes owe their condition, not to congenital deafness, but to such diseases as scarlet fever and the like; and these diseases are much more prevalent, as a rule, in the crowded industrial centres than in purely agricultural parts. The reduction of population in Ireland, so marked in 1851, 1861, 1871, is still in progress, though the rate of decrease has declined. The census of 1881 returned the total number of true mutism as 3092; acquired deafness, 753; uncertain, 68; and paralytic, 80; making a total of 3993 as deaf and dumb with other defects, while there were returned as many as 1143 as dumb not deaf, and with other physical defects. Congenital deafness is greatest in the counties of Monaghan, Clare, Galway, Armagh, and Limerick, the average proportion to their population being 1 in 1374, and it is least in the counties of Kilkenny, Leitrim, Louth, Wexford, and Westmeath, the average proportion among them being 1 in every 2369 of the population. It will be seen by the table preceding, that a satisfactory decline is taking place. But while social science is prosecuting this important inquiry, Philanthropy has before her the work of educating these children of silence,' to whom the ordinary means of instruction are obviously inapplicable, and for whom, until a century ago, there existed no available means of educa tion at all. Mentioned, as we have just seen, at the outset of man's history, by Moses; spoken of frequently in the writings both of the Old and New Testaments; alluded to by the poets, philosophers, and lawgivers of antiquity-we have no account of any attempt at educating the deaf until the 15th c.; no school existed for them until the middle of the 18th; nor could it be said that education was freely offered, and readily accessible, until within the last fifty years. Some isolated attempts had been made before the 18th century, by different men, in different countries, and at long intervals, to give instruction to one or two deaf and dumb persons, and their endeavours had been attended with various degrees of success. These several cases excited some attention at the time; but after the wonder at their novelty had subsided, they seem to have been almost forgotten, even in the countries where the experiments were made. Bede speaks of a dumb youth being taught by one of the early English bishops, known in history as St John of Beverley, to repeat after him letters and syllables, and then some words and sentences. The fact was regarded as a miracle, and was classed with others alleged to have been wrought by the same hand. From this time, eight centuries elapsed before any record of an instructed deaf-mute occurs. Rodolphus Agricola, a native of Gröningen, born in 1442, mentions as within his knowledge the fact that a deaf-mute had been taught to write, and to note down his thoughts. Fifty years afterwards, this statement was controverted, and the alleged fact pronounced to be impossible, on the ground that no instruction could be conveyed to the mind of any one who could not hear words addressed to the ear. But the discovery which was to give the key to this long-concealed mystery was now at hand. In 1501, was born, at Pavia, Jerome Cardan (q. v.), a man of great but ill-regulated. talents, who, among the numerous speculations to which his restless mind prompted him, certainly discovered the theoretical principle upon which the instruction of the deaf and dumb is founded. He says: Writing is associated with speech, and speech with thought; but written characters and ideas may be connected together without the intervention of sounds,' and he argues that, on this principle, the instruction of the deaf and dumb is difficult, but it is possible. All this, which to us is obvious and familiar, was a novel speculation in the 16th century. With us, it is a common thing for a man to teach himself to read a language though he cannot pronounce it. There are, for instance, hundreds of persons who can read French, who do not and cannot speak it. Now, it is evident, in this case, that written or printed words do impart ideas independently of sounds, yet this was a discovery which the world owes to Jerome Cardan; and it was for want of seeing this truth, which to us is so familiar, that the education of the deaf and dumb was never attempted, but was considered for so many centuries to be a thing impossible. It was in Spain that these principles were first put into practice by Pedro Ponce, a Benedictine monk, born at Valladolid in 1520, and again, a century afterwards, by another monk of the same order, Juan Paulo Bonet, who also published a work upon the subject, which was the first step towards making the education of the deaf and dumb permanent, by recording the experience of one teacher for the instruction of others. This book, published in 1620, was of service to De l'Epée 150 years later; and it contains, besides much valuable informa DEAF AND DUMB. towards the accomplishment of such a design. tion, a manual alphabet identical in the main seen, and some few but insufficient steps taken with that one-handed alphabet which is now in common use in the schools on the continent and in America. From this time there was a general awakening of the attention of intellectual men, not only to the importance of the subject, but to the practicability of instructing the deaf-mute. One of Bonet's pupils was seen by Charles I., when Prince of Wales; and the case is described by Sir Kenelm Digby, who was in attendance upon the prince, on his memorable matrimonial journey into Spain. When the art died away in that country, it was taken up by Englishmen, and began forthwith to assume an entirely new aspect. Dr John Bulwer published, in 1648, his Philocophus, or the Deafe and Dumbe Man's Friend; Dr William Holder published his Elements of Speech, with an Appendix concerning Persons Deaf and Dumb, in 1669; and Dr John Wallis, Savilian Professor of Mathematics in the university of Oxford, both tanght the deaf and dumb with great success, and wrote copiously upon the subject. In 1662, one of the most proficient of his pupils was exhibited before the Royal Society, and in the presence of the king. The Philosophical Transactions of 1670 contain a description of his mode of instruction, which was destined to bear ample fruits long after his death. England and Wales.. 1851. 1861. 1871. 1881. 816 1001 1200 1782 250 240 301 386 234 399 The above numbers include those in the six private schools, and 250 children in eight day schools under the School Board of London. In England and Wales, there were at the lastmentioned date 22 public institutions for the deaf and dumb, and 6 private ones. The oldest is that of Old Kent Road, London, founded in 1792; the next, that at Edgbaston, Birmingham, 1812. Six new ones were founded between 1871 and 1881. In Scotland, there were 7; one in Edinburgh dating from 1810. In Ireland, there were 4, one in Dublin having been founded in 1816. Thus there were 40 schools, and 2713 pupils in 1881. In the United States, there were at the same period 55 schools, with 5393 pupils; in Germany, 90 schools; in France, 60; in Italy, 55; not to speak of Austria, Switzerland, Russia, and Spain. There are now in Europe and America_more than 300 schools for the deaf and dumb. Let us think of the pupils educated in these institutions, all founded since 1760, when De l'Epéo collected his little group of children in the environs of Paris, and Thomas Braidwood opened his school in Edinburgh, and we shall then see that the fruits of these men's labours have not been meagre, but great and marvellous. It is to the present century that the honourable distinction belongs of having done so much for the deaf and dumb. This has not been by inventing the art of teaching, or by raising up the earliest labourers in this field of usefulness, but by founding and supporting public institutions for this purpose. De l'Epée, when he opened his school in 1760, had no foreknowledge of the work he was commencing. As his labours increased, he invited others to his assistance, and they were thus enabled to carry the light of instruction elsewhere, and to keep it alive when he was no more. His death took place in 1789, and his assistant, Sicard, succeeded him. Four years afterwards, this school was adopted by the French government, and now exists as the Institution Nationale of Paris. A pupil of this Institution, M. Laurent Clerc, went in 1816 to the United States with the founder and first principal of the American asylum, and he became, like De l'Epée, le père des sourds-muets (the father of the deaf and dumb) in the New World. Before the close of the 17th c., many works of considerable merit appeared, the chief of which are the Surdus Loquens (the Speaking Deaf Man) of John Conrad Amman, a physician of Haarlem; and the Didascalocophus, or Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor, of George Dalgarno. This treatise, published in 1680, and reprinted some years ago by the Maitland Club, is eminently sound and practical, which is the more remarkable, as the author speaks of it as being, for aught he knows, the first that had been written on the subject. He is the first English writer who gives a manual alphabet. The one described by him, and of which he was the inventor, is, most probably, the one from which our present two-handed alphabet is derived. Dalgarno was by birth a Scotchman, but was long resident at Oxford. He died in 1687, and Dr Wallis in 1703. From that time until 1760, nothing more was done in this country-though the subject was beginning to excite some attention in France-to resume the work which had been thus far prosecuted and helped on by the writings and labours of these eminent men. In 1760, when the Abbé De l'Epée was opening his little school in Paris, the first school in the British dominions was also established in Edinburgh, by Thomas Braidwood. He commenced with one pupil, the son of a merchant in Leith, who had strongly urged him to carry into effect the plan of instruction followed by Dr Wallis, and described in the Philosophical Transactions ninety years before. This school, the parent and model of the earlier British institutions, was visited and spoken of by many of the influential men of that day, and its history and associations are imperishable. Its local name of Dumbiedykes suggested to Sir Walter Scott a designation for one of his most popular characters in the Heart of Mid- There is some diversity of opinion as to the best lothian. A visit paid to it in 1773, by Dr Johnson, kind of schools as a means of education for deaf and his biographer Boswell, supplies one of the and dumb: a feeling having lately arisen against most suggestive and characteristic passages in the the Boarding-School or Hospital system in favour Journey to the Western Islands. In the year 1783, of Day Schools. For hearing pupils, this feeling is Mr Braidwood removed to Hackney, near London, probably just; but it by no means follows that the and the presence of his establishment so near to the arguments in favour of day schools for hearing metropolis undoubtedly led to the foundation of the children will also hold for deaf-mutes. It must be London Asylum in 1792. Dr Watson, its first remembered that the children in entering school principal, was a nephew, and had been an assistant, learn the manual alphabets and conventional signs of Mr Braidwood; and he states that, some ten or (which, with natural signs, pictures, and models, fifteen years previously, the necessity for the estab-constitute the means of education on the French lishment of a public institution had been plainly system), not in classes and from the teachers, but by DEAF AND DUMB. associating with their school-fellows who have effect of deafness is the extreme reverse of this-it already acquired their use. It is, therefore, of the touches only one bodily organ, and that not visibly, greatest importance and absolutely necessary that but the calamity which befalls the mind is one of the the children should be brought up together for some most desperate in 'the catalogue of human woes.' time at least; as a thorough and intelligent The deprivation under which the born-deaf labour acquaintance with the signs is indispensable to is not merely, or so much, the exclusion of sound, intelligible intercourse with their fellows, or to the as it is the complete exclusion of all that informa acquirement of ordinary written or printed letters tion and instruction which are conveyed to our or books. (It may be noted that for communication minds, and all the ideas which are suggested to between any one who hears and an educated deaf- them, by means of sound. The deaf know almost mute, the use of signs is needless; ordinary writing nothing, because they hear nothing. We, who do materials provide a sufficient channel.) Deaf-mutes hear, acquire knowledge through the medium of require different treatment from other children at language-through the sounds we hear, and the every step of their course. To conclude that a deaf words we read-every hour. But as regards the deaf child attending a day school about twenty hours a and dumb, speech tells them nothing, because they week requires no further instruction, is certainly a cannot hear; and books teach them nothing, because mistake. Much more continuous supervision by they cannot read; so that their original condition persons thoroughly conversant with their idio- is far worse than that of persons who can neither syncrasies is evidently desirable; and the parents read nor write' (one of our most common expresof deaf and dumb children are not usually sions for extreme ignorance); it is that of persons qualified to take the place of qualified instructors, who can neither read, nor write, nor hear, nor speak; Probably some modified system might advantage- who cannot ask you for information when they want ously be adopted, so that pupils, after acquiring it, and could not understand you, if you wished to proficiency in the special language signs, might be give it to them. Your difficulty is to understand boarded out. their difficulty; and the difficulty which first meets So it seems to most qualified people in this country the teacher is, how to simplify and dilute his indisputable that a combined method of teaching, instructions down to their capacity for receiving not relying wholly, as the German system does, on oral teaching, nor yet confined merely to the manual A class thus cut off from all communication through alphabet and signs of the French system, has the ear, can only be addressed through the eye; and advantages over either, taken separately. The the means employed in the instruction of the deaf oralists have heretofore had an advantage in de- and dumb are-1. The visible language of pictures, manding that for their system the children should and of signs and gestures; 2. The finger-alphabet be from 8 to 10 years of age, and taught by trained (or Dactylology), and writing, which make them teachers in classes of from 4 to 8 pupils. The com- acquainted with our own written language; and, bined system has not had the chance of producing in some cases, 3. Articulation, and reading on the the highest results of which it is capable. Children lips, which introduce them to the use of spoken enter school at various times of the year without language. The education of the deaf and dumb must any previous, knowledge of the language. They be twofold-you must awaken and inform their receive only five years' instruction, if so long; and that in many instances from inexperienced teachers in too large classes. Yet it seems certain that the combined and French systems are well adapted to meet the minds of all deaf-mutes not idiots. But in every school there are many children who, by reason of deficient intellect and aptitude, are quite unable to profit by pure oral teaching. The clever children may and do; while the semi-deaf and semimute would profit more by the oral system, and in separate schools. The mental condition of the deaf and dumb is so peculiar-so entirely unlike that of any other branch of the human family-that it is extremely difficult, without very close thought, to obtain an accurate conception of it. While almost every one will readily admit that there is a wide difference between a deaf and a hearing child, very few, who have not had their attention painfully drawn to the subject, possess any adequate notion of the difference, or could tell wherein it consists. Sometimes the deaf are compared with the blind, though there exists no proper ground of comparison between them. Except that the blind are more dependent than the deaf and dumb, the relative disadvantages of the two classes do not admit of a moment's comparison. The blind man can be talked with and read to, and is thus placed in direct intercourse with the world around him: domestic converse, literary pleasures, political excitement, intellectual research, are all within his reach. The person born deaf is utterly excluded from every one of them. The two afflictions are so essentially dissimilar, that they can only be considered and spoken of together by way of contrast. Each of them affects both the physical and the mental constitution; but blindness, which is a grievous bodily affliction, falls but lightly on the mind; while the them. minds by giving them ideas and knowledge, and you must cultivate them by means of language. The use of signs will give them a knowledge of things; but to this must be added a knowledge of words. They are therefore taught, from the first, that words convey the same ideas to our minds which pictures and signs do to theirs; they are therefore required to change signs for words until the written or printed character is as readily understood as the picture or the sign. This, of course, is a long process, as it has to be repeated with every word. Names of visible objects (nouns), of visible qualities (adjectives), and of visible actions (verbs), are gradually taught, and are readily acquired; but the syntax of language, abstract and metaphorical terms, a copious diction, idiomatic phraseology, the nice distinctions between words called synonymous, and those which are identical in form, but of different signification-these are far more difficult of attainment; they can only be mastered through indomitable perseverance and application on the part of the pupil, in addition to the utmost skill and ingenuity of the teacher. The wonder, therefore, surely is, seeing the point of starting, that this degree of advancement is ever reached at all. Yet it has been set forth by otherwise respectable authority, that the deaf and dumb are a 'gifted race;' that they are remarkable for their promptitude in defining abstract terms;' and those who ought to have known better, have strengthened this delusion, by putting forth, as the bond-fide answers of deafmutes, those brilliant aphorisms and definitions of Massieu and Clerc, which are so often quoted at public meetings, by eloquent speakers who know nothing of the subject. It is very well known to those who are acquainted with the subject, that the so-called definitions of Hope, Gratitude, Time, DEAF AND DUMB. Eternity, &c., were not Massieu's at all, but those system under which so many thousands of our deafmute fellow-citizens have been rendered competent for the duties of life, in the workshop, in their of his master, the Abbé Sicard. The influence of these fallacies has been most mischievous; they raise expectation to an unreasonable height, for it is thought that what was done by the celebrated pupil of the Abbé Sicard,' may be done every day and disappointment is the inevitable consequence. The honest, laborious teacher who cannot produce these marvellous results, and will not stoop to deception, has often to labour on without that appreciation and encouragement which are so eminently his due; the cause of deaf-mute instruction suffers, and a young institution is sometimes crippled by the failure of support, which was first given from one impulse, and is now withdrawn from another-not a whit more unreasonable than the first, but very unfortunate in its consequences. The course of instruction is very much the same in all the public schools of this country, but a vigorous effort is now being made, by the advocates of what is called the 'German System,' to teach by oral instruction only. If they can produce, on an extensive scale, the results which have been obtained in some special and exceptional cases, they will assuredly deserve all the success they hope for, and merit the highest commendation. But it will not be sufficient merely to shew that their system is superior to the one in present use, unless they can also shew that it can be as extensively applied. The dispensers of the funds of our institutions are bound to uphold that system which will confer the largest practicable amount of benefit upon the largest possible number of persons. To make a few brilliant scholars, and to produce a number of ready and intelligible speakers, will certainly be a very creditable achievement; but that will not justify any claim to supersede the humbler but more useful Two-handed Alphabet. families, and in society, and to 'walk in the house of God as friends.' The manual alphabet in common use in the schools of this country is the two-handed one, though the other is used in some of the Irish institutions, and is regarded with favour by a few of the English teachers. The arguments in its favour, like those for the decimal currency, may probably be admitted; it would be better if we had it. But the rival system has got possession, and is in familiar use, and persons are apt to think that the inconveniences of making the change would outweigh the advantages to be expected from it. The institutions in Great Britain are supported by annual subscriptions, donations, and legacies, and by the payments of pupils for their board. The larger benefactions are invested, where the annual income from ordinary sources will admit of it. Committees, chosen from the body of subscribers, direct the affairs of these institutions, the executive officers being the head-master and the secretary; but in some cases the sole charge is intrusted to the principal. The gentlemen who fill this office have devoted their whole lives to the work; some of them have also done good service by their writings upon the subject. The census report, 1871, specially mentions the works of Messrs Baker of Doncaster, Scott of Exeter, and Buxton of Liverpool, each of whom has helped to make it better known and better understood than it could possibly be when it was treated by men with no practical knowledge, as a merely literary topic, or a subject of philosophical curiosity. Justice also requires the mention here of the valuable writings of the late Dr H. P. Peet of New York, and other DEAF AND DUMB-DEAFNESS. arrange the exquisite adjustment of its parts. 1. The auditory nerve may itself be unsusceptible to the stimulus of sound, from some diseased condition at its origin in the brain, or at its final subdivision in the labyrinth. This is termed nervous deafness. 2. The structures which conduct the vibrations of sound to the labyrinth may be faulty, from accident or disease. 3. The passage leading to the tympanum or drum may be blocked up. 4. The cavity of the drum may have ceased to be resonant, owing to deposits from inflammatory attacks, to loss of its membrane, or air being excluded, from obstructions in the passage between it and the gullet (the Eustachian tube). American instructors of the deaf and dumb. The influences, and that very slight causes may dis institutions in the Western World are munificently supported by grants from the states, and appear to be admirably managed. The staff of teachers is numerous, able, and efficient, and a high degree of success may fairly be expected where the work is carried on under advantages which are unknown in the schools of Great Britain. At Washington, a college has been established, and is in successful operation, under the presidency of Dr E. M. Gallaudet, the youngest son of the founder of the American Asylum. In New York, an elder brother of this gentleman, the Rev. Dr Thomas H. Gallaudet, has ever since 1852 conducted services in his church in the sign language, and in 1872 organised a mission to promote the temporal and spiritual welfare of adult deaf-mutes, in which he has the co-operation of three clergymen and one layman, who, during the year ending October 29, 1873, held services for deaf-mutes in thirty-one churches in the principal cities of the United States. In London a church has been built to meet the same necessity, and religious services are conducted by two chaplains and four laymen, in various parts of the metropolis; Manchester also possesses a chaplain and lay helpers employed in the same work; in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin, also in Birmingham, and the large manufacturing towns of Yorkshire, special funds are raised, and special agents employed, to promote in like manner the social and religious benefit of the deaf and dumb. In Liverpool the same results are aimed at by voluntary agency, where, beside the Sunday services, lectures are given during the week, when a library and reading-room are thrown open, a penny bank has been brought into successful operation, and a benevolent society visits the sick, helps the needy, and buries the dead. These are the means at present employed for the benefit of the deaf and dumb, and it is no small honour to the present century, which has won so many proud distinctions in other fields of enterprise and usefulness, that it should have done so much for those who for so many generations were utterly excluded from light and knowledge. DEAF AND DUMB (in Law). From the imperfect methods formerly in use for the education of the deaf and dumb, they were almost everywhere held to be legally in the same position as idiots and madmen. The Roman law held them to be incapable of consent, and consequently unable to enter into a legal obligation or contract. Both in England and Scotland, the amount of their capacity is now a question of fact, which, in cases of doubt, will be referred to a jury. In the same manner, a mute will be examined as a witness in regard to a fact to which he is capable of bearing testimony, and the examination will be conducted in the manner which seems most likely to elicit the truth. (Best, Law of Evidence, p. 201.) The same principle will govern the estimate of his responsibility for crime. (Stephen's Com. iv. 461.) It is of course legally, as it is physically, impossible that a mute should act as a juror. DEAFNESS may be complete or partial, may affect both ears or only one, may date from birth, be permanent or only temporary, and is but too often one of the distressing symptoms of advancing age. The causes of deafness are numerous. On glancing at the article AUDITORY NERVE, the reader will at once remark the extraordinary intricacy of the hearing-apparatus there described, and will easily conceive that although it be contained in a little nut of densest bone (the petrous portion of the temporal), still it is exposed to many deteriorating Nervous deafness may be caused by a sudden concussion, as from a box on the ear,' or a general shock to the whole body, as in the case of the celebrated Dr Kitto, who lost his hearing, when a boy, by a fall from the top of a house. The con cussion from loud sounds suddenly taking the car unawares, before its small muscles have time to prepare themselves for the shock, causes the deafness which follows the firing of cannon. Even a loud yell close to the ear has been sufficient to destroy the hearing-power on that side. As such an accident is generally accompanied by an increased flow of blood to the part injured, it may be relieved by the application of leeches, applied behind the auricle, and the ear should for some time be protected from loud sounds as carefully as possible. In some of these cases the nerve gradually recovers its sensibility, but in many the deafness continues, and is accompanied by a distressing singing in the ears. Exposure to cold affects the auditory nerve; and gouty persons, or those who are suffering from the poisons of typhus fever, scarlatina, measles, mumps, &c., frequently become deaf. Some medicines, as quinine, produce nervous deafness; so do debility and mental excitement; but all these causes seem to act in one way-viz, to increase the flow of blood to the ear, and should be treated accordingly. The solid conductors of sound to the auditory nerve may be injured or diseased, so that the deafness was some years ago shewn to exist by Mr vibrations are interrupted. One curious cause of Joseph Toynbee of London-viz, an increasing stiffness in the little joint by which the stirrupbone moves in the oval window of the vestibule; this stiffness prevents the base of the stirrup pressing inwards sufficiently to affect the contents of the labyrinth, therefore it ceases to keep the auditory nerve en rapport with the membrane of the drum. This condition may be recognised during life by the patient losing the power of adapting his hearing to varying sounds. Two voice of either; there is a constant buzzing in the persons speaking at once prevents his hearing the ear, and he gets deafer and deafer day by day. This curious disease is frequently associated with gont and rheumatism, and in its earlier stages may be influenced by the same remedies as these; but if once established, it is incurable. Sound reaches the auditory nerve through the vibrations of the bones of the head, but chiefly through the external opening in the auricle, the passage leading from which is shut at the depth of an inch and a quarter from the surface by the membrane of the drum stretching across it. Should this passage be blocked up, so that the sounds can no longer pass along it to impinge upon the membrane, either total or partial deafness must result. The most common obstruction is an accumulation of the wax secreted by a small ring of glands near the orifice. The object of this cerumen or wax is to |