converse of this, that time is measurable by extension (see Appendix).

While making some galvanic experiments. on the senses, to furnish materials for a work on Animal Electricity, which I published in the year 1793, I discovered a test of easy application to ascertain the remaining excitability of the retina. By placing a piece of zinc foil on the tongue and a silver rod high up the nostril, and bringing them into contact, a flash of light was observed, and at the same time a contraction of the iris. I have tried this experiment on the eyes of the blind in the Asylums both at Bristol and Manchester, and have ascertained with tolerable exactness any degree of excitability that still remained in the retina (see Appendix).

Analogous to this, we often cannot hear the words of a chant till we have seen them in a book. When, therefore, both the senses. of sight and hearing have been long in abeyance, all attempts to improve them should be assisted by such appropriate exercise as will rouse the mind to attempts at adjustment. With this view, metals and mirrors, which

reflect strong light, may be often put within the field of vision; and a Jew's-harp, musicbox, bell, or tuning-fork or poker held by a string to the ears, and struck sharply with the back of a knife, may afford convenient tests of the state of the organ, and awaken trains of thought in minds torpid from deficient excitement.

Cases of deafness, dumbness, and blindness appear to me to admit of more alleviation than parents, and even professional men, are aware of; IF attended to when FIRST observed. Mons. Itard says, that not more than (I quote from memory) one-fifth of the supposed deaf are quite so; and that many might be rescued by an early and sifting examination. In some of the few dissections recorded, no malformation was detected. In the adult cases examined by Mr. Cline, Dr. Heighton, and others, the labyrinth was filled with a cheesy matter, instead of an aqueous fluid. The importance of attending to our secretions is now recognised by all medical men. I have noticed the quickened apprehension which immediately succeeded womanly de

velopment in the Rotherithe girl, the principal subject of this communication. Suspecting that the dulness of hearing, of sight, and, in fact, of all our senses may in part be owing to diminished action of minute arteries subservient to structure and secretion, I have, for the last twenty years, been in the habit of advising those dull of hearing to freely and frequently excite the membrane of the meatus externus with an iron, or rather steel, earpicker. A healthy secretion is thus kept up, and, probably, extended to the membrane of the labyrinth. This, therefore, I have earnestly recommended to Margaret Sullivan. If she can be induced by the kind persons who have the care of her steadily to persevere in the daily practice of thus exciting the secretions of her ears, I still hope her hearing may be further quickened.

Richard Trimbee, the son of a poor widow in Salisbury, five years of age-all but deaf and dumb, was a healthy, well-grown child till the seventh month, when he had the measles severely, followed by excruciating pain and the gradual enlargement of the head. I

then saw him for the first time. He lay in a state of stupor, with dilated pupils, the parietes of the abdomen flat, and as if adhering to the back-bone. The bones of the head were not closed, and two large tumours, with distinct fluctuation, projected from its fore and hinder parts.

I

gave small doses, daily, of mercury and chalk, and kept the head wet with cold water, saturated with salt. His drink was a solution of cream of tartar and sugar. The tumours gradually subsided, and he became a healthy child, but was perceived to be impenetrably deaf and dumb. I advised that he might be encouraged to play in the fields, and that his head should still be kept wet with salt and water, and frequently rubbed with a rough towel. At two At two years of age, the circumference of his head was still 231⁄2 inches. As the external opening to the ear was in a natural state, I aimed at promoting the secretions of wax by stimulating its membrane. As the mother had reduced a swelling in front of her neck by frequently rubbing it with some very acrid dripping, she readily

complied with my request, to put some daily in the ears of her child, and prick them with an iron ear-picker. By the continued use of these means, and various contrivances to excite the sensation of sound, he can now hear several words spoken loudly and articulately by his mother, and the sounds he hears he tries to imitate.

I give this case as equally in a state of transition with that of the eight-year-old boy in the Asylum at Exeter, but in the reverse direction. The Exeter boy was becoming dumb, because he was deaf; Trimbee is beginning to speak, because he is beginning to hear.

Trimbee is at this time (June 23, 1843) five years old. He is a plump, well-grown, healthy, active, and intelligent child. His head now measures only 20 inches in circumference, but is still nearly an inch and a half larger than that of a brother-stout, healthy, and eight years old.

Still further to show the dependence of the adjustments of the muscles employed in speech on the sensibility of the ear, a poor widow, now 54, had eight children; with some she