The morning call., 1895-01-20

of the lips. Their fabby, toneless, vocal
chords are developed by patient education
in making sounds and grow tense and
taut. Thus is the miracle performed that
the deaf hear and the dumb speak.
And the deaf hear well, too. For instance,
l stand and speak long sentence, looking
straight forward, and specially educated
deaf child stands some two yards from my
side looking toward me and converses with
me by watching the movements OF. that
very limited portion of my mouth which
he sees. Nay, more, | stand IN darkened
room, and the shadow OF my speaking Ups
is thrown in sharp and exaggerated profile
on the white wall, and the specially edu-
Gated deaf child stands behind me and
hears by watching the moving shadow lips
and answers me back in his turn. Surely,
this last is little short of the supernatural.
But how shall the blind see? William
II. Prescott, the great American historian,
who lived in Boston and who was himself
blind, said: ''The blind man sees little
outside Of the circle drawn by, his ex-
tended arms but within that circle he sees
more than those whose eyes are sound"
That mutual aid society of the senses,
in which all the sound senses seem to
struggle forward in their headlong zeal TO
act as a crutch for their disabled sister, has
in its thoughtfulness provided an eye Tor
the blind man with which he can see TO ms
arm s length, but not beyond. The man
who was born blind has, of course, no ade-
quate idea of the lovely blending OF the
changeless blue of the skies with the vary
ing shades of green woods and fields. He
can never appreciate the grandeur OF the
armament at night, with its countess
starry, twinlling hosts, lacing the soft
fleece of the milky way.
But plants have been brought into his
classroom or have brushed against him III
h have StfaVeQ
caressingly over their tender tilaments
and shapely leaves, and he has bent down
his head and buried his face in the fragrance
of their flowers
Little wooden stars litter the school
table, and he gathers some faint conception
of how they stand fixed, or endlessly pur-
sue their orbits, in the immensely of space.
Color he does not understand, but color,
YOU know, is a thing even the wisest OF US
can never actually know.
Some people say that the color is in the
rose and some that 1t only exists IN the
minds eve that sees it. Perhaps the latter
statement is true, and perchance the blind
mans brain is filed with the rarest tint OF
beauty. Only we can never compare with
him because we have no common standard
of vision.
What is this so useful eye with which
the blind man sees at close quarters? 1t Is
his sense of touch. An illustration is re-
produced in this article of the paicnian
corpuscle. This nervous and arterlal fila
ment with its surrounding texture is rarely
visible to the naked eye. 1t lines alf the
toctile surfaces of the body, particularly
the inner surfaces of the thumb, fingers
and hand.
1t is in this latter locality that it most
delicately and wisely performs its function
of touch-or rather of receiving these i'm
pressions of exterior objects which when
carried to the brain by the afferent nerves,
produce in one of its centers, now well
known, the sensation of touch. If one
were to dissect out these corpuscles in vari-
Gus parts of the body he would find them
developed much according to the locality
in which they were found-most deficient
and most primitive in structure where there
is least necessity for sense of touch, and
most elaborate and highly developed where
that sense is strongest.
But Just as the eyes of the deaf are so
wonderfully developed and increased in
their power for exquisitely fine vision, so
that they are almost like what we call Gin
struments of precision" just so are these
pacinian corpuscles unusually developed
in the fingers of the blind.
The illustration is of a corpuScle in
person who does not see. If you were to
examine one of these cOrpuScleS taken
from the finger of a blind man, you would
ma q very DnuCu larger anu luO1 ueLCoGC
ramification of nervous and arterial ibers-
an infinite number of delicate and tender
filaments branching off the main stems
shown in the picture.
There seems to be absolutely no limit to
the development of this sense of touch of
the blind. 1t is well known that they have
an unusual aptitude for playing the piano.
The deft and noiseless lingering OF the keys
seems to be almost an instinct with them.
The pent-up soul OF music, finding no out
let through their blind eyes, streams in
generous flood down their fingers and over
the ivory keys.
Nor is this all. Given damp clay and a
specific object to initiate, the blind child is
enabled by constant digital comparison to
turn out in clay very fair reproduction of
any stuffed model over which his fingers
may pass. Afterward he models from
memory, and without opportunities of
comparison.
Walking through the classrooms of asy-
lums for the blind, have often been led to
ask the superintendent why it has never
occurred to him to push this unmistakable