Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Deaf-mutism / by Holger Mygind. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![instruction. Individuals with this form of deafness may be designated true deaf-mutes. Those who have some sHght power of hearing, or some power of speech (either because the hearing is not totaUy absent, or because the deafness occurred after speech had been acquired), may be described as semi-mutes. Etiologically, deaf-mutism has been further divided into endemic deaf-mutism, i.e., that which attaches to certain districts and their natural conditions ; and sporadic deaf-mutism, which is the result of certain accidental causes. Both these forms may be con- genital or acquired [Bircher, 158, p. 67]. No objection can be made to this mode of classification. There is, however, much which seems to prove that the endemic form of deaf-mutism common m Swit- zerland, and which is an expression of cretenic degeneration, is, both as regards etiology, morbid anatomy, and more particularly symptomatology different from that treated of in this work {see definition, p. i.). In support of this opinion, which was first expressed by Uchermann [203, p. 99], it may be stated that, according to Bircher, numerous dumb persons in districts where endemic deaf-mutism is found, possess comparatively good hearing [158, p. 57]. KocHER also declares that there are deaf- mutes (!) whose hearing is normal [201, p. 597] , In many respects cretenic deaf-mutism would seem to resemble a complication of deaf-mutism and idiocy, which is met with everywhere, and which will be more particularly discussed afterwards. Both are probably an expression of a brain-disease. The most general classification of deaf-mutism is that which discriminates between the deaf-mutism](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21709968_0022.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
