Facts and opinions relating to the deaf from America.

Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Facts and opinions relating to the deaf from America. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    five deaf-mute children, one parent was deaf in a greater or less degree. ' In the eight remaining cases representing the same number of families, the deaf relatives were outside of the immediate family circle, being uncles, cousins, or those still more distantly related. ' As regards the relationship of parents before marriage, in the case of two out of our 134 pupils the parents were cousins, in two cases they were second cousins, and in one case they were third cousins. ' In none of these five families were there two or more deaf- mute children, and the proportion of related parents (less than four per cent, of the whole) is perhaps not greater in the 129 families from which these statistics are gathered than in the community as a whole. ' In the six families reported above as containing each three or more deaf-mute children, I am satisfied (although the point does not admit of exact statement) that the parents were in no case below the average in physique, in morals, or in their sanitary surroundings, and in no case was either of the parents deaf, while the 22 deaf-mute children of those families are, on the whole, rather above than below the average in health and vigour. ' While the number of cases covered by this Report is not large enough to furnish a safe basis for drawing any general con- clusions, yet the indications which they afford will have a certain value, especially when they harmonise with the results of other investigations independently conducted. ' It would appear, then, that while the great majority of cases occur singly in unrelated families, there is yet a considerable number of marriages which give rise each to several deaf- mute children. Nor, if we may generalise from our figures, are the parents of a numerous deaf-mute progeny generally deaf themselves or from an ancestry characterised by deafness. It would seem, too, that, contrary to a rather wide-spread nation, neither consanguinity nor low vitality of the parents is a frequent