quite deaf and blind.

The mother

had absconded with her child, preferring the gain which she made by showing her offspring as a monster, to her real welfare.

"A very melancholy case was recently brought to me for advice. It was that of a boy of very prepossessing appearance, fourteen years old, who, two months before, was in the possession of all his senses, and remarkable only for PRECOCIOUS MENTAL ACTIVITY. He was considered an extraordinary boy, and his mental activity was doubtless the effect of morbid sensibility of the brain, which could probably have been cured by entire cessation of study.

"Suddenly, his sight began to fail; and in a few weeks he became entirely blind. Hardly had his parents recovered from the stunning influence of this blow, before they remarked with alarm that his head began to be affected, and they brought him to this city (Boston, U. S.) for advice.

"When I saw him, his hearing was very obtuse; it was necessary to speak in his ears very loud, to make him hear; and addressing

him in this way, seemed like calling to a departing spirit, which was rapidly fading away. His MIND was not affected at all; but it was getting closed up in the body, and as much beyond the reach of other minds, as though his body were in the act of being enclosed in mason-work.

"I recommended that immediate advantage should be taken of what hearing remained, to teach him the manual alphabet, because, afterwards, it would be a very slow process. This was two months ago, and I have not since heard of him."

It is not improbable, that many cases of deficiencies in the organs of sense may have occurred and passed unnoticed. That to which I have alluded, as born and now living at Portsmouth, had remained unnoticed, even by the medical men of the town, till she had passed her 40th year. I attended a meeting of medical men from six neighbouring coun

ties only a few years ago, and no mention was then made of her.

Since the particulars related in page 5, line 20, were made known to me, I have instituted some further inquiries, and the following is the substance of the answers from a gentleman living near Portsmouth :

"Her name is Jane Gill; her age, about 45; she was born deaf and dumb, but not quite blind, but has been blind 40 years; has remained uneducated from infancy. Her father was a pilot, but has been dead some years. She lives with her brother at Gosport, and is supported by her family. Her touch, smell, and taste are perfect. She is small in stature, was active when a child, is decorous and intelligent, but is not active now, and sleeps much. She used to work and thread her needle with her mouth, but does not do any work now. Her notions of right and wrong, of true and false, appear to be correct. She has no notion of doing to others what she expects from them, and no notions of religion. She is very sensible of any kindness shown to her. If she puts any thing on the

mantel-piece, and does not find it when she goes to it again, she shows her displeasure in a manner not to be mistaken; and if she wishes to give any thing to any one, and they do not take it, she also shows her displeasure, and also her pleasure, if it is taken away."

These, I own, are not very satisfactory notices of the Portsmouth case, but they are all that I have hitherto been enabled to glean.

Some years ago, I saw a Miss Biffin, born with a good head, bust, and trunk, and who had every appearance of intelligence and robust health, with perfect organisation of all her senses; but she had no vestige of either legs or arms beyond the scapula. Yet, with the aid of these, her lips, and her tongue, she contrived to thread her needle, and draw and paint flowers and feathers as beautifully as persons who might be considered proficients in their art. :

In the summer of 1840, I saw in the Asylum for the Blind at Glasgow a young woman, about twenty, deaf, dumb, and blind, but not from infancy, who not only read em

bossed print with unhesitating facility, but wrote legibly with equal facility, and corresponded with a blind friend by means of knots made on strings.

In a physiological point of view, the most valuable cases that have come to my knowledge are those of Laura Bridgeman and Julia Brace, in America, and of whom Capt. Basil Hall kindly procured me the official reports. To these, Dr. Howe has most obligingly added many particulars of physiological interest in a letter written in answer to some queries which I had been encouraged by Capt. B. Hall to address to him.

These, and all the instances of blindness and deafness which I have had opportunities of examining personally, or have read from well-authenticated sources, confirm the observations of Dr. Howe and the late Sir Charles Bell, that defective intelligence is not to be inferred from defects in the organs of sense that they are by no means in a direct ratio to each other. Many of the lower animals have these organs in a state of perfection, to which those of men bear no as