8 Fly Leaves, No. XIII-Strade's Poems. On a Gentlewoman walking in the Snowe. In your sterne beauty I can see W. S. [July, Song. Of Death and Resurrection. Or like false newes which people frame: The eye is turn'd, the starre downe Or like the wave which gulfes doe snatch, The eye still sees, the starre still blaz- BORN DEAF & DUMB who was, presented to the late QUEEN CHARLOTTE on acquiring the sense of Hearing & the faculty of Speech under the treatment of MIR WRIGHT, her Majesty's Surgeon Aurist with whom she non resides. in Princes Street, Hanover Square. Tondon, Published August 1, 1823, by J. Nichols, & Son. Printed by T&IElvay Case of Miss Thatcher, born Deaf and Dumb. 1923.] Mr. URBAN, MISS July 9. ISS THATCHER, whose Portrait we now send you, (see Plate I.) was born totally deaf, and consequently insensible to the use of language. Her case proves in a very decided manner what advantages may be attained by scientific and humane perseverance: at the same time it opens to view a reasonable hope, that these poor unfortunate beings, to whom this inlet of human knowledge appeared irrevocably closed, are not all in that dreadful situation. The community are under great nity are obligations to any man who is the first to stem the torrent of error, and prove so distinctly that all the sons of Esculapius of olden time, as well as those of the present day, who have consigned this class of diseases to the incurable list, are not to be implicitly relied upon. Diseases of the Ear, we are assured by several, and we know it to be the opinion of some of the highest members of the profession, are very little if at all understood by the general practitioner; but a gentleman who turns the whole force of a well-educated mind, aided by experience, to one branch of a profession, must necessarily rise to eminence. We see this daily in every walk of life, and it is a proof of liberality and honourable feeling in the medical and surgical profession, to submit (as it is well known they do) cases of defective sight, hear ing, &c. &c. to the gentlemen who make those respective departments of practice their constant study, and from the number of cases continually presenting themselves, must be well skilled in affording relief. Before men of science and education undertook the treatment of deafness and diseases of the auditory organs, they were affections for which most old women had a never-failing nostrum, or which the itinerant Empiric appropriated to himself. Many of these delude the public, both in the metropolis and the country, even at the present day; but the gentlemen who have devoted themselves to this line of practice and justly claim respectability are, we believe, only four in the whole of this great empire, all of whom now reside in London. It is neither our province nor wish to draw a comparison between these GENT. MAG. July, 1823. 9 gentlemen; they have no doubt each their own peculiar opinions and methods of treatment. Not that we mean to convey an idea, that each applies a favourite remedy to every case indiscriminately; this would be stigmatising them as system-mongers, than which nothing can be more opposite to true science. No doubt they all give their Patients a clear, honourable opinion of the case presented to them, formed upon a comprehensive view of the various symptoms. Here it is the man of ability shines superior to the Empiric; the first applies a remedy from a knowledge of its effects in relieving a peculiar målady; the Charlatan blunders on, and if by chance one case out of a thousand succeeds, he uses every art to cause all the unsuccessful cases to be buried in oblivion. Miss Thatcher is a native of Bristol, of a highly respectable family, but since the acquirement of hearing, she has become an orphan, and Mr. Wright, with the consent of her father, previous to his death, and her nearest relatives, has adopted her as his own: she is about sixteen years of age, finely formed, peculiarly interesting in manners and disposition, and gifted with considerable intellectual powers. Her voice is harmonious and natural, but owing to a double uvula, or rather a division of it, she cannot pronounce some letters and words so fluently as other persons, which is to be attributed to that cause alone, as others similarly circumstanced (although they are by no means common instances,) have the same difficulty. Her hearing is however quite perfect, and she forms altogether a very striking example of the successful treatment of extreme deafness, whilst her case, which is well authenticated, will diffuse a ray of hope that will penetrate wherever a similar instance is to be found, and we trust will excite the ability, and stimulate the perseverance of others to carry on and perfect the benefits which this new discovery opens to the world; for this young lady is not the only case wherein the same modes of treatment have succeeded, and there is reason to believe, that had her Majesty Queen Charlotte's life been prolonged, she intended to have become the Patroness of an Institution, where children, thus deprived from birth of the valuable sense of hearing, might have received the 7 10 Case of Miss Thatcher, born Deaf and Dumb. the advantages of the same treatment; for her Majesty expressed herself much gratified by such a proof that these cases were not all incurable, and was pleased to cause the Royal thanks to be conveyed to Mr. Wright, for one of his publications on the Ear, which her Majesty personally desired him to send her, and in honouring him with the grant of an appointment as her Surgeon-Aurist (see London Gazette, Jan. 20, 1818), declared in a letter written by her Majesty's command, that the honour was conferred in consequence of her Majesty "having had an opportunity of witnessing the efficacy of Mr. Wright's practice and ability as an Aurist." From one of Mr. Wright's works on "Nervous Deafness," it appears that this young lady's case was a species of dropsy of the membrane, generally known by the name of the drum of the ear, which being formed of several laminæ, some of them were kept apart by extravasated fluid. He considers this case as of very rare occurrence, but is of opinion that the most frequent cause of total and congenital deafness is to be attributed to the injudicious exposure of infants. by nurses and others to sudden changes of temperature, cold ablutions in the first moments of existence, &c. &c. but he does not think that there are so many children born deaf, as is generally believed. It is commonly supposed, that in the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, the children receive medical aid as to the malady under which they labour; but by a correspondence published in 1819, it appears that Mr. Wright offered to attend the children in that Institution gratuitously; and His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, the Patron, with the advice of Dr. Bain, one of the Censors of the College of Physicians, recommended that the offer should be accepted; to which the Committee returned the following answer: [July, "Resolved, That as this Institution is established only for the purposes of Instruction, it is the opinion of this Committee that they cannot, consistently with their sense of the confidence reposed in them by the Parents, permit the Pupils received by them for Education alone, to be subjected to any Medical Treatment whatever in regard to their Deafness, while they are in the Asylum, and that a copy of this Resolution be respectfully communicated to his Royal Highness the Patron." When the proposal was made, it was explained to the Committee that the modes of treatment were not kept secret, neither were they painful, nor in any respect injurious to the constitution; and under those circumstances, with facts before them to shew that it was no vain theory, surely parents ought to have had an option, whether they would or would not subject their children to a trial of the curative process, thus proposed. We understand the illustrious Patron was of opinion, that if such rules existed, whereby the Committee considered themselves obliged to give the above reply, a general meeting of Governors ought to have been convened, for the purpose of taking into consideration the propriety of rescinding such regulations. If, indeed, the method of treatment was calculated to give pain, or derange the health of the children, the general meeting of Governors would have evinced parental solicitude by refusing the offer; but it was not proposed that the children should be subjected to the ridiculous plan of having their constitutions injured, and probably their lives destroyed with mercury*; nor their ears burned with caustic †. Indeed, the Governors would only have had to look at Miss Thatcher, to be convinced that the process was not injurious to health; and every person who sees this print of her, will be of the same opinion, for Miss Drummond has shewn her usual taste and spirit of execution in the portrait, and the engraver has performed his part in a * Several cases are quoted, and much force of reasoning used by Mr. Wright, in a little work on "The improper use of Mercury in cases of nervous Deafness." + The case of the Duke of Wellington, into whose ears a solution of caustic was put to relieve an imaginary opacity of the drum of the ear, must serve as a caution against the use of this application; for though numberless cases might be cited in which it has occasioned equally injurious effects, yet when a misfortune occurs to such an illustrious individual, it becomes known to all the world. The Duke's life was considered by his medical attendants as being seriously threatened, previous to his departure for the Congress, owing to this application, and his Grace's hearing has been very defective, until recently, since Mr. Wright's attendance upon him but we understand that gentleman is in great doubt whether the hearing on one side will ever be restored. manner |