V. INSTITUTIONS AND INSTRUCTION FOR THE BLIND.

BY L. P. BROCKETT, M. D.

CAUSES AND EXTENT OF BLINDNESS.-Blindness, though congenital in many instances, is less frequently so than deafness. When congenital, its causes are generally analogous to those which induce idiocy, deafness and insanity. Intermarriage of near relatives, scrofula, or other diseases of parents, and intemperance on the part of parents, are very common causes. There are many cases, however, which can not be thus accounted for. Blindness occurring subsequently to birth, is usually the result of prevalent ophthalmia, conjunctivitis, iritis, cataract, amaurosis or gutta serena, small pox, measles, accidents from powder, blows on the eye, &c. Of the diseases enumerated prevalent, ophthalmia and amaurosis are most fatal to sight. The latter, which consists in paralysis of the optic nerve, is very seldom cured. It was the cause of Milton's blindness. The diseases of the eye have of late years received much attention, and eminent men have made their treatment a specialty. Most of our large cities have hospitals or infirmaries devoted to the treatment of these diseases, and Jones, Lawrence, Mackenzie, Hays and others, have published treatises on the subject. The operation for the cure of Strabismus or squinting, which some years ago was very common, is less resorted to at the present day than formerly. The operations for cataract, (couching or depressing and dividing the lens, to remove it from the field of vision,) have resulted in the partial restoration to sight of many blind persons.

The statistics of blindness, in different countries, reveal some singular facts. As we proceed toward the Equator, the proportion of the blind to the entire population increases with great rapidity, and the same is observable in very high latitudes. M. Zeune, the late accomplished director of the Institute for the Blind at Berlin, some years ago prepared a table on the subject, which subsequent observations on the Eastern Continent have very nearly verified. following were the results at which he arrived:

The

Between 20° and 30° N. L. ratio of blind to inhabit. is 1 to

100

Between 50° and 60° N. L. ratio of blind to inhabit. is 1 to 1,400

66

66

66

66

66

1 to 1,000

66

1 to 550

66 60° and 70° 66 70° and 80° The white glittering sand, and the intense heat of the sun, shining always from a clear sky, in Egypt and Northern Africa, causes diseases of the eye, and especially ophthalmia, to be very prevalent in those regions, and similar causes prevail, though to a less extent, in Southern Europe.

Among the densely populated nations of Central Europe, accidents with gunpowder, small pox and other epidemic diseases, are the most frequent causes of destruction of sight. In the temperate regions of the north, the number of the blind is comparatively small; but as we approach the Arctic circle, the glittering snows, the smoky dwellings, the alternation from the brilliant nights of the Arctic summer, to the deep darkness of the Arctic winter, all exert their influence upon the visual organs.

On this side of the Atlantic, however, a different ratio seems to prevail. We have not the means for an accurate comparison except of the latitudes between 30° and 45°; but the proportions are very different from those embodied in M. Zeune's table. The ratio of the blind to the entire population of the United States is 1 to 2,328. The states lying between the parallels of 30° and 35° have 1 to 2,525 inhabitants; between 35° and 40°, 1 to 1,750; between 40° and 45°, 1 to 2,460.

Comparing these statistics with those of most of the countries of Europe, we find a great predominance in favor of the United States.* According to M. Dufau,

Prussia has 1 blind person to 1,401 inhabitants.

In Prussia

of the number are under 15 years of

Sweden only of the whole number.

The number of the blind in France is about 33,000

*It is questionable, however, whether the U. S. Census of 1850, is as complete and reliable

as those of European countries.

In Southern and Central Europe the number of blind males exceed the females; in Northern Europe, on the contrary, the females exceed the males.

INSTRUCTION OF THE BLIND.-Although individuals among the blind have, in all ages, attained to a fair amount of education, yet it does not seem that the idea of making provision for their education, as a class, entered into the minds of either Greek or Roman. They procured a precarious subsistence by begging by the wayside, or at the entrance of the temples; but there was no one who would teach them more honorable means of obtaining a livelihood, or rescue them from the inseparable evils connected with a life of mendicancy. Nor amid the noble and philanthropic reforms introduced by christianity, was there any provision made for the training and instruction of the blind. They begged on as before, though now frequenting the doors of christian churches, instead of heathen temples, and asking alms in the name of Christ instead of Esculapius. There were in each age, however, some, who feeling themselves moved by the impulse of genius, sought for more elevated society, and more ennobling pursuits, than the beggar's position and employment. The first public provision ever made for the blind is believed to have been the founding of the Hospice des Quinze-Vingts at Paris, by Louis IX., better known as St. Louis, in 1260. It was established by the kindhearted monarch for the benefit of his soldiers who, in the campaigns in Egypt, had suffered from ophthalmia. As its name implies, it was intended for fifteen score or three hundred blind persons; though for many years past, the number of inmates has been about 400, including the families of the blind, who are also domiciled within its walls. Its annual income is about $80,000. The allowance to a blind man is $89 per annum; if he is married this is increased to $110; if he has one child, $120; if two, $130.50; and so on, adding $10.50 for each child. Besides these, it has about six hundred pensioners, who do not reside at the hospital, but receive according to their age and circumstances, $20, $30 or $40 per annum, to aid in their support; some of those entitled to a residence in the Hospice, prefer to remain with their families, in other parts of the city; to these a pension of $50 per annum is paid; no instruction is attempted, and the temptations to a life of indolence are such as to render this asylum any thing but a model institution.

A similar, but less extensive institution, was established at Chartres, in the latter part of the thirteenth century; and in 1350, was No. 10-[VOL. IV. No. 1.]—9.

further endowed by king John, so as to accommodate 120 blind persons. From a variety of causes, the number of inmates dwindled, till in 1850 there were but ten.

During the sixteenth century, thoughtful and benevolent men, who had seen with interest the sad fate of the blind, sought to devise a process for their instruction, but with no great success. Attempts were made to print for them in intaglio, that is, with letters depressed below the surface; but finding these illegible to the touch, experi ments were made with raised letters, which were so constructed as to slide in grooves; these proving inconvenient, an attempt was made by Pierre Moreau, in 1640, to cast letters in lead, of more convenient form, but from some cause his plan was not successful.

In 1670, the Padre Lana Terzi, a Jesuit of Brescia, who had already published an essay on the instruction of deaf-mutes, appeared before the public with a treatise on the instruction of the blind.

Nearly a century later the Abbé Deschamps, and Diderot, the associate of D. Alembert in the Encyclopedia, proposed plans for their instruction in reading and writing.

In 1780, Weissemburg, a blind man of Mannheim, in Germany, published geographical maps in relief.

It was not, however, till 1784, that Valentine Haüy, "the Apostle of the Blind," as the French people have appropriately named him, commenced his labors in their behalf. Attracted at first to humanitarian labors, by the brilliant example of the Abbé De l-Epée, and to this particular department of them, by seeing a burlesque concert of blind performers, he devoted himself to the mode of instructing the blind, with a zeal and ardor which gathered new strength from every obstacle. His first pupil was a young blind beggar, whom he paid a stipend, in place of his acquisitions by begging, and who soon proved an apt scholar. The approbation of the Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the patronage of the Philanthropic Society, encouraged him to further exertions, and in 1786, his pupils, 24 in number, were called to exhibit their attainments, in the presence of the king and royal family, at Versailles. The royal patronage was secured for the new enterprise, and for a while all went on prosperously; the school increased in numbers and popularity, its pupils became eminent as musicians or mathematicians, and Haüy and his school were objects of interest to all.

In 1791 a change came. The Revolution was fairly inaugurated, the Philanthropic Society was broken up, and many of its members were wandering homeless, in foreign lands. The school for the blind was taken under the patronage of the state, and its support decreed;

but as one assembly succeeded another, and the reign of terror made the nation bankrupt, the sum decreed for its support was paid only in assignats, which, ere long, became almost worthless. Haüy and his blind pupils worked at the printing press, proctired in their more fortunate days, and eked out existence by the severest toil. It is said that Haüy for more than a year confined himself to a single meal a day, that his pupils might not starve. At length brighter days began to dawn, and prosperity seemed about to revisit them; when they were startled with the intelligence, that the Directory had united them with the inmates of the Hospice Quinze-Vingts, and that thenceforth these unfortunate children were to be exposed to the infectious example of the indolence and vice, so rife, at that time, in that great asylum. Overwhelmed by this intelligence, Haüy, who could not bear to see the fruits of seventeen years of arduous toil thus wasted, resigned his office as superintendent, and after a brief but unsuccessful effort at private teaching, went, at the invitation of the Czar, to St. Petersburg, where he founded an institution for the blind, which still exists.

His place was supplied for twelve years by an ignorant and incompetent director, under whom the school had nearly lost all its earlier reputation, retaining only its musical fame, and this more from the efforts of some of Haüy's old pupils, than from any new instruction.

In 1814 the government became satisfied that a great error had been committed in the union of the two institutions, and assigned separate quarters and ampler fnnds to the school for the blind, which again, under the patronage of royalty, assumed the title of the "Royal Institution for Blind Youth." A Dr. Guillié was appointed director, a man of energy and tact, but malicious, untruthful, and excessively vain. He expelled at once from the school those whose morals had been contaminated by their associations at the Hospice, and reorganized it with great pomp and parade. Every thing was done for show; manufactured articles were purchased at the bazaars, and exhibited as the work of the pupils; Latin, Greek, German, Italian and Spanish, were professedly taught, and the pupils made excellent public recitations in them by the aid of interlinear translations, while at the same time, not even the most elementary instruction in arithmetic or history, was given, and although a few pupils could play some tunes brilliantly, the great mass could not even read music.

Dr. Guillié seemed to regard any reference to Haüy as a personal insult; the very mention of his name was interdicted, and every thing he had done studiously attributed to some one else. This system of deception could not last; the government ordered an investigation,