The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-21 00:00:00

Asylum for Fatherless Children.

The general meeting and midsummer election of this
charity took place yesterday at the London Tavern, Alder-
man Lusk in the chair.

The Rev. T. W. Aveling (the hon. sec) read the report
of the committee of management, which stated that the total
receipts from May,1863, to May, 1861, amounted to £10,582
is sd, which sum had been expended, with the exception
of a balance of £323 6s 7d. Since the 15th May, £350 more
had been paid off the building debt, reducing it to £10,450.
The year now closed had not passed without one of those
visitations of sickness to which children are exposed, and
from which not the most unremitting care of the officers
and house committee could possibly preserve them. An
epidemic common to childhood appeared three ruonthfasmaiglyo:
but through the blessing of the great Father of the
the instant and constant attention of their friend Dr Rase"
the senior physician to the charity, and the sleepless vigi-
lance and superintendence of all employed in the establish-
ment, it has passed without the loss of a single life. The
health of the children at the present time was very good.
Towards the close of 1863 a most generous and unexpected
offer was made to the board by one of its oldest friends, to
give the handsome sum of 1,900 guineas to the charity. This
offer was coupled with a request that the further sum of
5,000 guineas should be raised, within two years, as a spe-
cial effort, and the whole amount be applied to the reduction
of the debt. Another generous friend weo desires to be
anonymous, immediately offered 500 guineas towards the
latter sum, and pledged himself to get a similar amount in
addition, of which 100 guineas have been already obtained.
Other friends responded to the appeal which the board at
once put forth, to the amount of £1,280. Thus, since last
year, the debt had been reduced by the sum of £3,805, leav-
ing now due £lO,BOO, towards which there are promises,
extending over certain periods, to the amount of between
£l,OOO and £l,lOO. Special contributions towards the debt
were still earnestly solicited, as well as increased annual
subscriptions and donations towards the current fund. This
latter had not quite met the ordinary expenditure, although
the annual subscriptions had increased by the sum of £100;
but the board had been encouraged, by the continued
liberality of the public, to receive during the past year 30
instead of 20 children, the number formerly admitted. As
the debt diminishes the board trust to be able to increase
I the number of admissions, and they hoped to see the build-
ing, capable of accommodating 300 inmates, completely
filled. The present number of children was 186.
On the motion of Mr DONNINGTON, seconded by Mr
HARDEN, the report was adopted.
A vote of thanks was passed to the treasurer, Baron L.
Rothschild ; the sub .treasurer, Mr Harvey, the honorary
secretary, the Rev Mr Aveling; and to the physician and
other officers of the charity.
The CRAIRMAN said the charity was in a very satisfac-
tory condition, and everything was prosperous. The
children were in good health, and that being the case he
should ask the friends of the charity for their support in
order that the institution might be made the most prosper-
ous in the metropolis.
A vote of thanks was passed to the chairman, and the
election of five girls, out of a list of 20 candidates, and 10
boys, out of a list of 54 candidates was proceeded with.

Cure of Deafn,
At the last sitting of the AcaL kir
M. Flourens presented an applicatiO-if itires.
him by Dr. Turnbull, a Scotch physician, who pro-
posed to employ a method of his own on a certain.
determinate number of persons afflicted with want
of hearing, and prayed the Acadcmy to appoint a.
committee; first, to ascertain the state of the pa..
tients before being submitted to the treatment in
question, and next, to report at the end of a year
what had been the amount of EUCCCS3 arrived at.
Dr. Turnbull has explained his method to M.
Flourens, and will likewise communicate it to the
members of the committee. He has described it in.

a sealed papt-r deposited with the Academy, bat
wishes it cot to be published until the expiration
of a year. The Academy, considering the subject
of immense importance to humacity, at once ap•
pointed a committee composed of MM. Flourens,
Milne-Edwards, and Bernard. The promptitude
with which this decision has been come to reflects
great credit en the Academy. It, appeors that when.
Lord Brougham was la•cly in Y r:s, being anxious,
as always, to forward any plan liko:y to prove
useful to his fellow-creatures, he gave Dr. Turnhuil
a letter of introduction to M. Aligner, and through
him the matter was brought under consideration,
and, appearing to the Academy to present
every guarantee of success, was immediately
disposed of, as stated above. It may not
be irrelevant to state that Dr. Turnbull,s name
has been long known in England and the United.
States as connected with extraordinary cures of
deafness—not mere impediments in bearing, but
deafness existing from the first moment of life,.
Some years back a paper appeared in Chambers'
Edinburgh Journal giving an account of several
extraordinary cures effected by the practitioner lin
question. After speaking of several cases of deaf
and dumb persons successfully treated by the Turn-
' bull method, the writer says:—
Let us first explain that the deafness of the class of per-
sons called deaf-mutes has hitherto been quite incurable.
With respect to certain modifications of deafness produced
by cold, and other similar accidental means, there has long
been a medical practice attended with some measure of
success : for example, in London there is an institution
ealled the Royal Dispensary for Diseases of the Ear, where,
since its commencement in 1816 to 1840, according to a
statement by its surgeon, Mr Harrison Curtis, 12,000 cases
have been cured or relieved. But for that complete deafness
which is born with a human being and prevents the future
acquirement of speech there is acknowledgedly no cure
whatever upon the medical books. This is fully owned
by one of the first writers and practitioners of the day
on aural surgery, Dr. Wilhelm Kramer, of Berlin,
who, in a work on the subject, says :—" There are convinc-
ing proofs of the entire failure of all remedial attempts
hitherto made for the restoration of hearing in deaf-mutes.
. . . The deaf-dumb, whether they be completely deaf,
or merely dull of hearing, are incurable." The condemna-
tion thus pronounced will appear a very distressing one,
when it is known that, in civilised communities, one person
in about every 1,600 is a deal-mute. In each of six Euro-
pean States—France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Russia, and
Prussia—the proportion given by statistics is exactly one to
every 1,685 of the population. The whole number in Great
Britain alone is 12,394, and in France 20,189.
The writer then proceeds to affirm that Dr. Turn.
bull certainly cures congenital and other cases of
deafness, and mentions instances in point. We
quote textually :
During his recent brief residence in Edinburgh, Dr
Turnbull effected the entire cure of Miss Catherine Walker,
of Kelso, a young lady known to various friends of our own
as having been deaf and dumb daring her whole life up to
that period, and who had accordingly received her ed,icatioa
in the institution for deaf-mutes in Edinburgh. We saw
this young person, first a week, and next time about
month, after her cure, and found that she heard as well as
any ordinary person. At the time when we saw her last,
she was beginning to use her voice to some little purpose,
insomuch that her friends forbade her to speak to them en
her fingers, _alleging that they could understand what she.

said,

Although Dr. Turnbull can restore hearing in such
cases in about a quarter of an hour, the learning to
speak distinetly afterwards is a long np-hill piece
of work, and probably on that account it is that in
his application to the Academy of Sciences he feted
a year as the period for a fair trial, wishing not
only to present cases of restored hearing but of a
certain facility in speaking. When the patient is
young the diffien!ty seems to be lees, as will he seen
by the follwing extract from the work already
quoted :

Dr Turnbull was in Glasgow at the beginning of tl le by-
past year, and in public administered to various deaf and
dumb persons. Happening to be acquainted with a gentle-
man who had taken an interest in what was then done, we
wrote to him making particular inquiry into the condition
of two young pus( ns whom we untlerstood to have reccafived
decided and permanent bew,E,, raf,e were deaf-n utes
named June Wilkie and Margaret Muir, the one being
about eight years of age, the other about nineiteen.
Our friend answered as follows :—" I called on both
the girls to-day, and had the good luck to find
Wilkie at home. Her mother states freely that she
hears quite as well as the other children, and is at a school
conducted by a female, who seems to be bringing her on
very well, if I may judge from a specimen of her reading I
witnessed to day. Her articulation was very perfect, con-
sidering the short time that she has been at school. They
have no occasion now to speak loud to her, as she seems to
understand quite well what is said when her back is turned.
. . I found Muir's parent at home, but she herself
was at work in a cotton mill. 1 put many questions to the
parents, which they answered very satisfactorily. They
stated that the surprising effects produced by Dr Turnbull
had not altered in the least drgree, but on the contrary
were rather increased. She hears whatever is said to her,
though she may be in another room with the door shut.:

These extracts, we conceive, will suffice to show
that much advantage is likely to accrue to mankind
from the new treatment when made public, and it
was doubtless the firm conviction of that result
which induced the Academy of Sciences to accede
so promptly to Dr Turnbull's application.

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