66

CHAP. VIII.

OF HEARING.1

the image of the body which has thus too vio- | increase from time to time, so that he could not lently or preseveringly employed us, is painted only discover the parts of his bed, and such other upon every thing we look at, and mixes with large objects, but, at length, he even began to every object that occurs. And this is an obvious perceive the mice that frequented his cell; and consequence of the eye taking in too much light, saw them as they ran about the floor, eating the either immediately, or by reflection. Every body crumbs of bread that happened to fall. After exposed to the light, for a time, drinks in a quan- some months' confinement he was at last set free; tity of its rays, which being brought into dark- but such was the effect of the darkness upon him, ness, it cannot instantly discharge. Thus the that he could not for some days venture to leave hand, if it be exposed to broad day-light for some his dungeon, but was obliged to accustom himtime, and then immediately snatched into a dark self by degrees to the light of the day." room, will appear still luminous: and it will be some time before it is totally darkened. It is thus with the eye; which either by an instant gaze at the sun, or a steady continuance upon some less brilliant object, has taken in too much light; its humours are, for a while, unfit for vision, until that be discharged, and room made for rays of a mild nature." How dangerous the looking upon bright and luminous objects is to the sight may be easily seen, from such as live in countries covered for most part of the year with snow, who become generally blind before their time. Travellers who cross these countries are obliged to wear a crape before their faces, to save their eyes, which would otherwise be rendered totally unserviceable; and it is equally dangerous in the sandy plains of Africa. The reflection of the light is there so strong, that it is impossible to sustain the effect, without incurring the danger of losing one's sight entirely. Such persons, therefore, as read or write for any continuance, should choose a moderate light, in order to save their eyes; and although it may seem insufficient at first, the eye will accustom itself to the shade, by degrees, and be less hurt by the want of light than the excess.

“It is, indeed, surprising how far the eye can accommodate itself to darkness, and make the best of a gloomy situation. When first taken from the light, and brought into a dark room, all things disappear; or, if any thing is seen, it is only the remaining radiations that still continue in the eye. But, after a very little time, when these are spent, the eye takes the advantage of the smallest ray that happens to enter; and this alone would, in time, serve for many of the purposes of life. There was a gentleman of great courage and understanding, who was a major under King Charles I.; this unfortunate man, sharing in his master's misfortunes, and being forced abroad, ventured at Madrid to do his king a signal service; but unluckily failed in the attempt. In consequence of this, he was instantly ordered to a dark and dismal dungeon, into which the light never entered, and into which there was no opening but by a hole at the top, down which the keeper put his provisions, and presently closed it again on the other side. In this manner the unfortunate loyalist continued for some weeks, distressed and disconsolate; but at last he began to think he saw some little glimmering of light. This internal dawn seemed to

As the sense of hearing, as well as of sight, gives us notice of remote objects, so, like that, it is subject to similar errors, being capable of imposing on us upon all occasions, where we cannot rectify it by the sense of feeling. We can have from it no distinct intelligence of the distance from whence a sounding body is heard; a great noise far off, and a small one very near, produce the same sensation: and unless we receive information from some other sense, we can never distinctly tell whether the sound be a great or a small one. It is not till we have learned, by experience, that the particular sound which is heard, is of a peculiar kind; then we can judge of the distance from whence we hear it. When we know the tone of the bell, we can then judge how far it is from us.

Every body that strikes against another produces a sound, which is simple, and but one in bodies which are not elastic, but which is often repeated in such as are. If we strike a bell, or a stretched string, for instance, which are both elastic, a single blow produces a sound, which is repeated by the undulations of the sonorous body, and which is multiplied as often as it happens to undulate or vibrate. These undulations each strike their own peculiar blow: but they succeed so fast, one behind the other, that the ear supposes them one continued sound; whereas, in reality, they make many. A person who should, for the first time, hear the toll of the bell, would, very probably, be able to distinguish these breaks of sound; and, in fact, we can readily ourselves perceive an intension and remission in the sound.

In this manner, sounding bodies are of two kinds; those unelastic ones, which, being struck, return but a single sound; and those more elastic, returning a succession of sound; which uniting together form a tone. This tone may be considered as a great number of sounds, all produced one after the other, by the same body, as we find

1 This chapter is taken from Mr. Buffon. except where marked by inverted commas.

in the room, and touching a favourite air, the poor madinan instantly seemed to brighten up at the sound; from a recumbent posture, he began to sit up; and, as the musician continued playing, the patient seemed desirous of dancing to the sound: but he was tied, and incapable of leaving his bed, so that he could only humour the tune with his head, and those parts of his arms which were at liberty. Thus the other continued playing, and the dancing-master practised his own art, as far as he was able, for about a quarter of an hour, when suddenly falling into a deep sleep, in which his disorder came to a crisis, he awaked perfectly recovered.

animals. The story of Arion's harp, that gathered | gardless of every external object round him. the dolphins to the ship side, is well known; Happening, however, to take up a fiddle that lay and, what is remarkable, Schotteus assures us, that he saw a similar instance of fishes being allured by music. They tell us of diseases that have been cured, unchastity corrected, seditions quelled, passions removed, and sometimes excited even to madness. Dr. Wallis has endeavoured to account for these surprising effects, by ascribing them to the novelty of the art. For my own part, I can scarcely hesitate to impute them to the exaggeration of their writers. They are as hyperbolical in the effects of their oratory; and yet we well know, there is nothing in the orations which they have left us, capable of exciting madness, or of raising the mind to that ungovernable degree of fury which they describe. As they have exaggerated, therefore, in one instance, we may naturally suppose that they have done the same in the other; and, indeed, from the few remains we have of their music, collected by Meibomius, one might be apt to suppose there was nothing very powerful in what is lost. Nor does any one of the ancient instruments, such as we see them represented in statues, appear comparable to our fiddle.

“However this be, we have many odd accounts, not only among them, but the moderns, of the power of music; and it must not be denied, but that on some particular occasions, musical sounds may have a very powerful effect. I have seen all the horses and cows in a field, where there were above a hundred, gathered round a person that was blowing a French horn, and seeming to testify an awkward kind of satisfaction. Dogs are well known to be very sensible of different tones in music; and I have sometimes heard them sustain a very ridiculous part in a concert, where their assistance was neither expected nor desired.

"A thousand other instances might be added, equally true: let it suffice to add one more, which is not true; I mean that of the tarantula. Every person who has been in Italy now well knows, that the bite of that animal, and its being cured by music, is all a deception. When strangers come into that part of the country, the country people are ready enough to take money for dancing to the tarantula. A friend of mine had a servant who suffered himself to be bit; the wound, which was little larger than the puncture of a pin, was uneasy for a few hours, and then became well without any farther assistance. Some of the country people, however, still make a tolerable livelihood of the credulity of strangers, as the musician finds his account in it not less than the dancer."6

5" Of the solace of music, nay, more, of its influence upon melancholy, I need not look for evidence in the universal testimony of antiquity, nor remind such an audience of its recorded effect upon the gloomy distemper of the perverse mind of Saul. I myself have witnessed its power to mitigate the sadness of seclusion, in a case where my loyalty as a good subject, and my best feelings as a man, were more than usually interested in the restoration of my patient; and I also remember its salutary operation in the case of a gentleman in Yorkshire many years ago, who was first stupified, and afterwards became insane This upon the sudden loss of all his property. vegetated, for he was motionless until pushed, and gentleman could hardly be said to live-he merely did not speak to, nor notice anybody in the house, for nearly four months. The first indication of a return of any sense appeared in his attention to music This was observed, the second played in the street. This time he heard it, to have a more decided force in arousing him from his lethargy; and induced by this good omen, the sagacious humanity of his superinte: dent offered him a violin. He seized it eagerly, and hearing the rest of the patients of the house pass by amused himself with it constantly. After six weeks, his door to their common room, he accosted them,

"We are told of Henry IV. of Denmark, that being one day desirous of trying in person whether a musician, who boasted that he could excite men to madness, was not an impostor, he submitted to the operation of his skill: but the consequence was much more terrible than he expected; for, becoming actually mad, he killed four of his attendants in the midst of his transports. A contrary effect of music we have, in the cure of a madman of Alais, in France, by music. man, who was a dancing-master, after a fever of five days, grew furious, and so ungovernable that his hands were obliged to be tied to his sides: what at first was rage, in a short time was converted into silent melancholy, which no arts could exhilarate, nor no medicines remove. In this sullen and dejected state, an old acquaintance accidentally came to inquire after his health; he found him sitting up in bed, tied, and totally re

2 Quod oculis meis spectavi. Schotti Magic. universalis, pars ii. lib. 1. p. 26.

2 Olai Magni, lib. 15. hist. c. 28. 4 Hist. de l'Acad. 1708, p. 22.

.

Good morning to you all, gentlemen, I am quite well, and desire I may accompany you. In two months more he was dismissed cured."-Sir Henry Halford.

6 The Peccorara and Tarantella are the dances of Calabria: the latter is generally adopted throughout the kingdom of Naples. The music accompanying it is extravagant and without melody: it consists of some notes, the movement of which is always increasing, till it ends in producing a convulsive effort

Sounds, like light, are not only extensively upon persons of this kind, always found that diffused, but are frequently reflected. The laws their defect in judging properly of sounds proof this reflection, it is true, are not as well under-ceeded from the inequality of their ears; and restood as those of light; all we know is, that ceiving by both, at the same time, unequal sensound is principally reflected by hard bodies; and sations, they form an unjust idea. In this manner their being hollow, also, sometimes increases the as those people hear false, they also, without knowreverberation. "No art, however, can make an ing it, sing false. Those persons also frequently echo; and some who have bestowed great labour deceive themselves with regard to the side from and expense upon such a project, have only erect- whence the sound comes, generally supposing the ed shapeless buildings, whose silence was a mor- noise to come on the part of the best ear. tifying lecture upon their presumption."

The internal cavity of the ear seems to be fitted up for the purpose of echoing sound with the greatest precision. This part is fashioned out of the temporal bone, like a cavern cut into a rock. "In this the sound is repeated and articulated; and, as some anatomists tell us, (for we have as yet but little knowledge on this subject,) is beaten against the tympanum, or drum of the ear, which moves four little bones joined thereto; and these move and agitate the internal air which | lies on the other side and lastly, this air strikes and affects the auditory nerves, which carry the sound to the brain."

One of the most common disorders in old age is deafness; which probably proceeds from the rigidity of the nerves in the labyrinth of the ear. This disorder, also, sometimes proceeds from a stoppage of the wax, which art may easily remedy. In order to know whether the defect be an internal or an external one, let the deaf person put a repeating watch into his mouth, and if he hears it strike, he may be assured that his disorder proceeds from an external cause, and is, in some measure, curable: "for there is a passage from the ears into the mouth, by what anatomists call the eustachian tube; and, by this passage, people often hear sounds, when they are utterly without hearing through the larger channel: and this also is the reason that we often see persons who listen with great attention, hearken with their mouths open, in order to catch all the sound at every aperture."

It often happens, that persons hear differently with one ear from the other: and it is generally found that these have what is called, by musicians, a bad ear. Mr. Buffon, who has made many trials

Two persons placed opposite to each other make, like a pair of savages, wild contortions and indecent gestures, which terminate in a sort of delirium. This dance, originating in the city of Tarentum, has given rise to the fable of the tarantula, whose venomous bite, it is pretended, can be cured only by music and hard dancing. Many respectable persons who have resided for a long time in the city of Tarentum, have assured me that they never witnessed any circumstance of the kind, and that it could be only attributed to the heat and insalubrity of the climate, which produce nervous affections that are soothed and composed by the charms of music. The tarantula is a species of spider that is to be found all over the south of Italy. The Calabrians do not fear it, and I have

often seen our soldiers hold it in their hands without

any bad effects ensuing."-Calabria, during a Military

Residence.

Such as are hard of hearing, find the same advantage in the trumpet made for this purpose, that short-sighted persons do from glasses. These trumpets might be easily improved so as to increase sounds, in the same manner that the tele scope does objects; however, they could be used to advantage only in a place of solitude and stillness, as the neighbouring sounds would mix with the more distant, and the whole would produce in the ear nothing but tumult and confusion.

Hearing is a much more necessary sense to man than to animals. With these it is only a warning against danger, or an encouragement to mutual assistance. In man, it is the source of most of his pleasures; and without which the rest of his senses would be of little benefit. A man born deaf, must necessarily be dumb; and his whole sphere of knowledge must be bounded only by sensual objects. We have an instance of a young man, who, being born deaf, was restored at the age of twenty-four to perfect hearing: the account is given in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, 1703, page 18.

A young man, of the town of Chartres, between the age of twenty-three and twenty-four, the son of a tradesman, and deaf and dumb from his birth, began to speak all of a sudden to the great astonishment of the whole town. He gave them to understand, that about three or four months before, he had heard the sound of the bells for the first time, and was greatly surprised at this new and unknown sensation. After some time, a kind of water issued from his left ear, and he then heard perfectly well with both. During these three months, he was sedulously employed in Jistening, without saying a word, and accustoming himself to speak softly (so as not to be heard)! the words pronounced by others. He laboured hard also in perfecting himself in the pronunciation, and in the ideas attached to every sound. At length, having supposed himself qualified to break silence, he declared, that he could now speak although as yet but imperfectly. Soon after, some able divines questioned him concerning his ideas of his past state; and principally with respect to God, his soul, the morality or turpitude of actions. The young man, however, had not driven his solitary speculations into that channel. He had gone to mass indeed with his parents, and learned to sign himself with the cross, to kneel down and assume all the grimaces of a man that was praying; but he did all this without any manner

of knowledge of the intention or the cause; he saw others do the like, and that was enough for him; he knew nothing even of death, and it never entered into his head; he led a life of pure animal instinct; entirely taken up with sensible objects, and such as were present, he did not seem even to make as many reflections upon these, as might reasonably be expected from his improving situation and yet the young man was not in want of understanding; but the understanding of a man deprived of all commerce with others, is so very confined, that the mind is in some measure totally under the control of its immediate sensations. Notwithstanding, it is very possible to communicate ideas to deaf men, which they previously wanted, and even give them very precise notions of some abstract subjects, by means of signs and of letters. A person born deaf, may, by time, and sufficient pains, be taught to write and read, to speak, and by the motions of the lips, to understand what is said to him; however, it is probable that, as most of the motions of speech are made within the mouth by the tongue, the knowledge from the motion of the lips is but very confined; "nevertheless, I have conversed with a gentleman thus taught, and in all the commonly occurring questions, and the usual salutations, he was ready enough, merely by attending to the motion of the lips alone. When I ventured to speak for a short continuance, he was totally at a loss, although he understood the subject, when written, extremely well." Persons taught in this manner, were at first considered as prodigies; but there have been so many instances of success of late, and so many are skilful in the art of instructing in this way, that though still a matter of some curiosity, it ceases to be an object of wonder.8

S

as he had found to increase, by their interposition, the quantity of light; and it was one of his chief amusements, to concentrate the sun's rays by means of pieces of glass, transparent pebbles, or similar substances, which he held between his eye and the light, and turned about in various directions. He early showed an extraordinary acuteness of the senses of touch and smell. When a stranger arrived, his smell immediately and invariably informed him of the circumstance, and directed him to the place i where the stranger was, whom he proceeded to survey by the sense of touch. In the remote situation and, therefore, the first thing he generally did, was where he resided, male visitors were most frequent; to examine whether or not the stranger wore boots; if so, he immediately went to the lobby, felt for, and accurately examined his whip; then proceeded and with the utmost seeming attention. It occasionto the stable and handled his horse with great care, ally happened, that visitors arrived in a carriage; and, on such occasions, he never failed to go to the place where the carriage stood, examined the whole of it with much anxiety, and tried innumerable times the edly guided by the smell and touch only. From elasticity of the springs. In all this he was undoubtchildhood he had been accustomed to strike his fe teeth with a key, or any instrument that gives a sha sound. His chief pleasures were obviously derived from taste and smell; and he often eat with a disagreeable voracity. He found amusement also in the exercise of touch; and often employed himself for hours, in gathering from the bed of a river, round and smooth stones, which he afterwards arranged in circle. He explored by touch a space of about two a circular form, seating himself in the midst of the hundred yards round the parsonage, to every part of which he walked fearlessly, and without a guide; and scarcely a day elapsed in which he did not cautiously feel his way into ground which he had not explored before. In one of these excursions of discovery, his father observed him creeping on his hands and knees, along a narrow wooden bridge which crossed a neighbouring river, at a point where the stream was deep and rapid. He was immediately stopped; and to deter him from the repetition of such perilous experiments, he was once or twice plunged into the river, which had the desired effect. The servants were instructed to prevent his visits to the horses of strangers in the stable; and after his wishes in this respect had been repeatedly thwarted, he had the ingenuity to lock the door of the kitchen on the servants, in the hopes that he might accomplish unmolested his visits to the stable. The information of his understanding, and the guidance of his conduct, seemed entirely to depend either on touch, or on the organs of smell and taste, which, in perfectly formed men, have almost dwindled into mere instruments of sensual gratification. His docilEdin-ity and contrivance often indicated a degree of understanding which (if due allowance be made for his privations) was superior to that of many in whom James Mitchell, the son of a clergyman lately every inlet is unobstructed through which the matedeceased, in the county of Nairn in Scotland, was rials of knowledge enter the mind. He had received born on the 11th November, 1795. His mother soon a severe wound in his foot, and during its cure, he noticed his blindness, from his discovering no desire usually sat by the fireside, with his foot resting on a to turn his eyes to the light, or to any bright object; small footstool. More than a year afterwards a ser and in early infancy also she ascertained his deafness, vant boy with whom he used to play, was obliged to from observing that the loudest noises did not dis- confine himself to a chair from a similar cause. turb his sleep. The deafness was from the begin- Young Mitchell perceiving that his companion rening complete; but the defect of sight, as in other mained longer in one situation than he used to do, cases of cataract, did not amount to a total absence examined him attentively, and seemed quickly to of vision. At the time of life when this boy began discover by the bandages on his foot, the reason of to walk, he seemed to be attracted by bright and his confinement. He immediately walked up stairs dazzling colours; and though every thing connected to a garret, sought out, amidst several other pieces with his history appears to prove that he derived of furniture, the little footstool which had formerly little information from that organ, yet he received supported his own wounded limb, brought it down from it much sensual gratification. He used to hold in his hand to the kitchen, and gently placed the between his eye and luminous objects, such bodies, servant boy's foot upon it.

7 Mr. Thomas Braidwood, late of Edinburgh, was perhaps the first who ever brought this surprising art to any degree of perfection. He began with a single pupil in 1764, and after that period taught great numbers of people born deaf, to speak distinctly, to read, to write, to understand figures, the principles of religion and morality, &c.

8 NOTE.-Case of James Mitchell.

In the Transactions of the Royal Society of burgh, Professor Stewart gives an interesting account of a boy born blind and deaf.