The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1910-02-08

Never in the history of the human
race has a combination of terrible af-
fictions upon one person so rebound
ed to the good Of vast number, and
indirectly to all, as in the case OF
Miss Helen Keller. BY means of her
wonderfully developed brain, and
through her own indomitable will
power and courage, she has carried
out successfully a campaign which
VIII save the sight hereafter of the
class known as the needlessly blind,
which, according to the latest statis-
tics amounts to Jhe alarming proper
ton Of about 25 per cent of all sight
less people in the country, while in
France it is SO per cent
The cause of this blindness is oph-
thalmia neOnatorum, l. e., infectious
inflammation of the eyes of the new
born; which is entirely preventable.
Last week the writer, as did every
other doctor in the state, received by
mail from the New York State De-
partment of Health "a little tin tube.
The distribution of these little tin
tubes represents the climax of the
marvellous work of this totally blind
and deaf young woman. in that they
contain the prophylactic most easily
and simply applied to the infants
eyes, which will wipe out one-quarter
to One-third of the entire blindness Of
the world
How Helen Keller Won.
How has Helen Keller accomplish
ed this great work?
To answer this we must go over
briefly a part of her life history.
Helen Keller was born June 81,
1890 When a little more than a year
and half old she lost both sight and
hearing.
1t is well known among educators
of the deaf that the loss of hearing
at such an early age is as great a
handicap as congenital deafness, so
far as the starting of the teaching
of language is concerned, which is
paramount. The interchange of
thought with our fellow beings
through language, however expressed,
is much more important than even
speech itself. Language. and speech
are not synonymous.
1t matters not through what medi-
um-speech, manual alphabet or the
various forms of writing and printing
ideas are received and expressed to
others, language is the sine qua non
of the education of the deaf. The Wri-
ter has seen many cases in which ar
the normal, when single words or mem
orized phrases were spoken, but in
which the mental ability to form SEN
fences independently has been entire
ly lacking. This has been not only be-
cause of the intense desire to de-
velop speech, with the consequent
neglect of language, but because
when language cannot be ac-
quired through the ear it is almost
the hardest thing in the world to mas
ter
Only a small percentage of the con-
genitally deaf can express themselves
in even approximately correct SEN
fences. Helen Keller was not only
under this great handicap of practl-
cally congenital deafness, but the one
of blindness was supefimposed. she
was deaf, dumb and blind.
AS she says in her book: .
"a sense of isolation enfolds me like
cold mist as | sit alone and wait
at life's shut gate"
In the circumstances it would have
been temerity to have prognostlcated
anything much better than a life OF
mental imprisonment.
Her Wonderful Brain.
BY inheritance, however, she had
latent brain, which was to prove Won
derful Then, when seven years Old,
she came under the instruction and
influence not only of a master mind
but of character such as is seldom
met with in the person of Miss Anne
Mansfield Sullivan (now Mrs. John
Albert Macy, who had been in the
Perkins Institution for the Blind, but
who had regained her sight not long
before she began to teach Helen KEEL
Ter.
After her marvellous awakening to
language Miss Keller decided to learn
to speak. and aided by Miss Sullivan
she has mastered articulation to the
extent of speaking better than most