him. even earlier than Darius the Mede, and might have been known to the, Jews prior to the Captivity. Darics were the gold coins best known in Athens; and when the supply became deficient, imitations of them were made, and hence the existing darics are mostly of Greek manufacture. It would seem extraordinary, when we consider the great number which are recorded to have been employed in presents and bribes alone, exclusive of the purposes of traffic, that so few should have reached modern times, if we did not know that upon the conquest of Persia they were melted down, and re-coined with the type of Alexander. Very few Persian darics are now to be seen in cabinets. There is one in Lord Pembroke's, which weighs 129 grains; and there are three in the cabinets of the British Museum, weighing about 128 grains each. Mr. Young, the eminent dealer in coins, also possessed two, one weighing about 1214 grains, the other 1284. The witticism of Agesilaus (Plutarch, Apophthegm Lacon.' xl.) is well known, who, being forced to retire from an invasion of the Persian provinces by the bribery used by the great king, said that 30,000 archers had defeated The silver coins which go by the name of darics are in truth miscalled. They had no such designation in ancient times. The earliest of them, if we may rely upon Herodotus in a passage already referred to (iv. 166), were struck by Aryandes, the Persian governor of Egypt, in imitation of the darics. "This Aryandes was governor of Egypt, and had been appointed by Cambyses. Some time after, presuming to put himself on an equal footing with Darius, he lost his life in consequence. Hearing by report, and seeing himself, that Darius was desirous to leave some memorial behind him, such as no other king had done, Aryandes followed his example, and met with his reward. Darius took the best gold, and purifying it to the highest degree, struck a coin. Aryandes, being governor of Egypt, did the same in silver; and the silver of Aryandes is now the purest. Darius being informed of what he was doing, put him to death, under the pretence that he was meditating a revolt." The coining of these darics or Aryandics in silver, however, must have been continued after the time of Aryandes. No fewer than eight specimens of this description are in the cabinets of the British Museum. One, formerly Mr. R. P. Knight's, bears the name of Pythagoras, as Mr. Knight conjectured, a king or governor of Cyprus. Others, which have the figure of the archer crowned on one side, have a mounted horseman on the other. They are generally considered as ancient Persian coins, and are commonly, though without any assignable reason, except as bearing the figure of an archer, called darics. Silver Daric. British Museum. Actual Size. Weight, 235 grains. DATA, DATUM. A datum is any quantity, condition, or other mathematical premiss which is given in a particular problem. Thus in the question "to draw a circle which shall have its centre in a given line, and shall touch two other straight lines," the data are as follows: 1, That the figure described is to be a circle; 2, a certain straight line; 3, that the centre of the circle is to be on that straight line; 4, two other straight lines; 5, that the circle is to touch those straight lines. Data may be divided into two classes, the latter class being the restrictions which it is necessary to place upon the class already described in order that the problem may be possible. Thus the preceding problem becomes absurd when the three straight lines are parallel, unless the line on which the centre of the circle is to lie be midway between the two others. Either then the problem must be proposed with the limitation "if it be possible," or an express datum of exclusion must be introduced, namely, that the three straight lines must not be parallel, unless, &c. In the mere etymology of the word datum all legitimate consequences are data when the premises are data. Thus, given two circles which touch, there are also given two circles which have a common point in the line joining their centres. The book of Euclid known by the name of Data (dedouéva) is the deduction of magnitudes from other magnitudes, not as to what they are, but as to whether they are determined or not. Thus, one of the propositions is, "If a given magnitude be cut in a given ratio, the segments are given." The preface of Marinus to this book contains a dissertation on the meaning of the term. DATISCIN. This name appears to have been given to two distinct substances, 1st, to a variety of starch [INULIN]; and, 2nd, to a yellow colouring matter contained in the leaves of the datisca. DATURA STRAMONIUM. [STRAMONIUM.] DATURINE. [ATROPINE.] DAUCUS CARO'TA, Medical Properties of. The carrot has been sufficiently described. [CARROT; DAUCUS, NAT. HIST. DIV.] For medical purposes the root of the cultivated plant, and the fruit (called improperly seeds) of the wild plant, are used. The former rasped down into a fine pulp is sometimes applied raw to chapped nipples, and even cancerous ulcers; but more commonly it is boiled, and beaten into a uniform mass, and applied as a poultice to fetid, sloughing, and other ill-conditioned sores, which it cleanses, and otherwise improves. Upon what its power depends is not well ascertained: the juice of the root, analysed by Wackenroder, gave the following constituents: Carotin is a ruby-coloured substance occurring in four-sided plates. It is tasteless, odourless, insoluble in water, soluble in alcohol, and in ether, more so if fat be present, also in fatty or fixed oils, which it colours yellow. The volatile oil is colourless, of a peculiar penetrating odour, and disagreeable taste. Thirty-four pounds of the fresh root yield only half a drachm of oil. Probably the oil of the seeds is similar. (Pereira.) The fruits of the wild carrot are about one line and a half long, oval, flat, and clothed along the ridges with hairs. The odour is peculiar, aromatic; the taste aromatic and bitter. Their primary action is warming and carminative; and in their secondary effects, they are occasionally diuretic. They are seldom used. The root of the wild carrot is said to produce injurious effects, and should be avoided. The cultivated carrot, particularly the yellow kind, contains in the root a large quantity of starch. This is greatest when it is raised on unmanured ground, exactly as wheat when raised on undunged ground has more starch and less gluten than when manured. The quantity in the carrot seems greatest about the end of September. One hundred pounds (troy weight) of the fresh root then yield four and a half ounces of starch. It has been proposed to separate this starch in the same manner as starch from potatoes, to employ it medicinally as a very soothing and demulcent article of food for persons with pulmonary irritation and the cough which remains after the influenza. It is most likely a very digestible form of starch, but not more so than arrow-root. It may be raised at a cheap rate, however, as any light soil will answer, and as no manure is needed it cannot be expensive. The refuse after the starch is extracted is good for cattle, and should not be wasted. The white or Flemish carrot is a valuable food for cattle. (Rham's Flemish Farming.) DAUPHIN, the title given to the eldest son of the king of France under the Valois and Bourbon dynasties. The origin of the word has been a matter of some dispute. The Counts of Albon and Grenoble are mentioned first in the 9th century as feudatories of the kingdom of Arles; they afterwards assumed the title of Counts of Vienne, and became independent, like other great feudatories. Guy VIII., Count of Vienne, is said to have been surnamed Le Dauphin, because he wore a dolphin as an emblem on his helmet or shield. The surname remained to his descendants, who were styled Dauphins, and the country which they governed was called Dauphiné. It included the present departments of Isère, Drôme, Hautes Alpes, and Basses Alpes. Humbert II., de la Tour du Pin, the last of the Dauphin dynasty, having lost his only son, gave up his sovereignty by treaty to King Philippe de Valois in 1349, after which he retired to a Dominican convent. (Moreri, and the French historians.) From that time the eldest son of the king of France has been styled Dauphin, in the same manner as the eldest son of the king of England is styled Prince of Wales. Since the dethronement of the elder branch of the Bourbons in 1830, the title of Dauphin has been disused. The last who bore it was the Duke of Angoulême, son of Charles X. DAVID'S DAY, ST., March 1. St. David, archbishop of Menevia, now called from him St. David's, in Pembrokeshire, lived in the 5th and 6th centuries of the Christian era; Pits (De Illustribus Anglia Scriptoribus') tells us that he died at the age of 146 years. He is said, in the days of the memorable Arthur, to have gained a victory over the Saxons, his soldiers during the conflict, for distinction and as a military colour, wearing lecks in their caps. In memory of this fight the Welsh still wear the leek on St. David's Day; and it is to this that Shakspere alludes in Henry V.,' act v. sc. 1, when he makes Gower upbraid Pistol for mocking "at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour.' (See Brand's Popular Antiq.,' edited by Sir H. Ellis, 4to, vol. i.; Brady's Clavis Calendaria, 8vo, Lond. 1812, vol. i. p. 228, &c.) DAY. Any astronomical period which depends directly upon the earth's rotation; or the interval between two transits over the meridian of any point in the heavens, real or imaginary. But the only days distinguished by that name in astronomy are the sidereal day, the real solar day, and the mean solar day. The sidereal day is the interval between two transits of the same fixed star; that is, the absolute time of revolution of the earth. It is divided into 24 sidereal hours, &c. It begins when the equinox is on the meridian of the place. The real solar day is the interval between two noons or transits of the sun over the meridian. Owing to the unequal motion of the sun, as well as the obliquity of the ecliptic, it is not of the same length at all periods of the year. The mean solar day is the average of all the real solar days; it is derived by supposing a fictitious sun to move round the equator, and uniformly in the same time as the real sun moves from an equinox to the same again. The method of adapting the motion of this fictitious body to that of the real sun will be explained in TIME, EQUATION OF. The civil day, in England at least, is the mean solar day, and begins at midnight; that is, when the fictitious sun is on the invisible part of the meridian. But the astronomical day always begins at the noon of the civil day, and the hours are reckoned forward up to 24. Thus eleven o'clock in the morning on the twelfth of January (civil reckoning) is 23 hours of the astronomical eleventh of January. After noon, and up to midnight, the astronomical and civil reckoning coincide. The mean solar and sidereal days are thus related: the mean solar day is 24h. 3 m. 56.55s., of sidereal time; and the sidereal day is 23 h. 56 m. 4:098., of a mean solar day. The ancients almost universally began their day at sunrise, with the exception of the Arabians, who began at noon, and the Egyptians at midnight. Among the moderns, most of the Eastern nations begin at sunrise, with the exception of the Arabians, who still begin at noon, and the Chinese, who rockon from midnight. The Austrians, Turks, and Italians reckon from sunrise, and other European nations from midnight. DAYS OF GRACE. [BILL OF EXCHANGE.] DEACON, an ecclesiastical term of Greek origin, from Aiákovos (Diáconus, literally, a servant), introduced into the Saxon vocabulary, and continued in use to the present time. It designates one of the orders in the Christian priesthood, the lowest of the three- bishops, priests, and deacons. The first institution of the order is particularly set forth in the sixth chapter of the Book of Acts. The administration of the charities in the Church of Jerusalem was complained of as partial by the Grecian converts. The apostles, in whom the administration had been vested, thought it expedient to divest themselves of this duty, and to devolve it on other persons, that they might devote themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Seven persons were selected for the office, and by prayer and the imposition of hands ordained deacons. It appears by the first Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy, that there were deacons in other Christian churches, and probably in all where such an officer was needed. He gives instructions (chap. iii. 8-13) respecting the character which became persons who should be admitted into the office. See also Phil. i. 1. There were also deaconesses in the primitive church, one of whom, Phoebe, is mentioned Rom. xvi. 1. This female officer may be traced to the 11th or 12th century. The peculiar office of both deacons and deaconesses was to attend to works of mercy, to be the administrators of the alms of the more opulent members of the church. by the bishop, and to assist a priest in divine service, and especially in the Communion. When contemplated in the light in which this form places him, he appears as an assistant to a priest, for he is to seek out the sick and poor and report them to the priest, and in the absence of the priest to baptize. This latter permission has led to the introduction of the performance of other ecclesiastical duties, namely, the celebration of matrimony, and the burial of the dead. In fact, the deacon performs all the ordinary offices of the Christian priesthood, except consecrating the elements at the administration of the Lord's Supper, and pronouncing the absolution. A person may be ordained deacon at twenty-three. He may then become a chaplain in a private family; he may be curate to a beneficed clergyman, or lecturer in a parish-church, but he cannot hold any benefice, or take any ecclesiastical promotion. For this it is requisite that he take priest's orders. DEAD OIL. [COAL TAR.] DEAF AND DUMB, CENSUS OF THE. Till the census of 1851 was taken, the public was without the usual official means of knowing the proportion of the deaf and dumb to the population of the kingdom. No previous account of the people had recognised either the deaf and dumb, or the blind. A statement was made about twenty-five years before, in the annual report of one of the provincial institutions for the deaf and dumb, that the number of deaf mutes in England and Wales alone was not less than 8000, and it was generally received with discredit. In the Journal of Education,' No. XIV. (1834), it was stated that actual returns had been procured from various parts of the kingdom, from which it was inferred that the proportion of deaf and dumb persons in South Britain was 1 in 1700; and this data was generally established in the minds of those most interested in the management of the various institutions for this class. The correctness of these estimate, wo sufficiently confirmed when the registrar-general's report was published. The total number of the deaf and dumb, returned in the various enumerations for the United Kingdom, being The above proportions vary in different parts of the kingdom. The county enumerations present some notable facts to which attention will be directed, inasmuch as they not only confirm certain opinions and facts previously known, and thus corroborate the general accuracy of the census returns, but they also point to other facts both new and valuable. The counties of England, Wales, and Scotland, are grouped in twelve geographical divisions: I. London, comprises parts of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent: in the repetition of these counties below, their metropolitan portions are excluded. In London the proportion of deaf and dumb to the popula tion is 1 in 1783. II. SOUTH-EASTERN DIV. 1. Surrey (ex-metro.) 2. Kent (ex-metro.) 3. Sussex. 4. Hampshire 5. Berkshire 1 in 1948 1947 2343 1714 2215 33. Cheshire. 1871 34. Lancashire 1874 2015 1614 3016 1754 1845 36. E. Riding (with York) 2231 37. North Riding 1754 In some dissenting communities there are deacons who still discharge the duties for which the office was instituted, collecting the alms of the people at the sacrament, and distributing them among the poor. But they are always laymen, or persons who have not gone through the forms, generally few and slight, of ordination, as practised VI. WEST MIDLAND DIV. among the dissenters. There is a form for the ordination of deacons in the English church: some clergyinen never take priest's orders. It appears by the Rubric that a person in deacon's orders is empowered to read publicly the Scriptures and homilies, to catechise, to preach when licensed to do so 22. Gloucestershire 23. Herefordshire 24. Shropshire 25. Staffordshire 26. Worcestershire 27. Warwickshire XI. WALES & MONMOUTHSH. 1 in 1542 Southern Counties Northern Counties. 1 in 1480 1156 1 in 1474 1499 1318 1317 With this table we may compare the one for France in Departments to the 1st of January, 1853, taken from 'Le Bienfaiteur des Sourdsmuets et des Aveugles,' by the Abbé Daras; which is followed by a few extracts from the Abbé's observations on the distribution of the deaf and dumb in France; we shall then review the table of the English counties. No. TABLE OF THE PROPORTION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB IN FRANCE. Departments. 1 in 1245 sequent dumbness is multiplied in such localities in a much greater proportion than among those happy populations spread over the rich and salubrious countries of Berri, Touraine, and the Isle of France. "Having studied this general rule of topographic hygiène in all its applications, we are surprised to find it confirmed where we might expect to meet with an exception. Thus, for example, Provence and Languedoc which separate the Alps from the Cevennes, would appear naturally to produce as many deaf-mutes as the mountains in their Proportion, vicinity; but no, Provence and Languedoc, being countries with a flat surface and highly cultivated, obey the general rule, and contain fewer unfortunates. It is remarkable that the departments of the Var, Hérault, the Mouths of the Rhône, Aube, Lower Charente, and those watered by the Garonne, only count one deaf-mute on 1500 inhabitants; this ratio applies also to the central level of the country, to the maritime coasts of "Brittany, to the valleys of Normandy, to the chalky plains of Champagne, to the hills of Burgundy, and to the river populations of the large streams which flow in the interior. It is not so in the departments covered with thick and old forests, surrounded with mountains, torn with volcanoes, inundated by the waters of lakes, infected by exhalations from marshes. In the first rank of these are Corsica and the Haut-Rhin, which present one deaf and dumb in 600 inhabitants; then come three departments situated on the Alps, the Vosges, and the Pyrenees, which contain one in 700 inhabitants; then come Isère, at the foot of Jura, between the Cevennes and the Alps, Lozère and Puy-de-Dôme, extending along the ridge of the mountains of Auvergne, and lastly Ariège, an escarpment of the Central Pyrénées; in these departments we find one deaf-mute in 800 inhabitants. 1415 1 in 686 44. Nord 2. Haut-Rhin 691 45. Finisterre 3. Basses-Pyrénées 711 46. Orne The Abbé Daras very properly says, "If a province of France produces on an average one deaf and dumb to 700 individuals; if other districts present only a single case among 2000; and if, again, between these extremes, numerous departments have one in 800, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500, &c., according to their situation, to the south or north of the empire, in a mountainous or flat country, in healthy or unhealthy places, in manufacturing or agricultural districts, &c.; it is evident that this statistical result reveals to families, and even furnishes to the administration, knowledge which may be applied to lessen or extenuate this fearful evil of humanity." The physical and social aspects of France are thus connected by the Abbé with the facts revealed in the census. "The irregular tablelands which border the frontiers of France on the north, south, and east, and the uncultivated moors which extend on the west to the borders of the ocean, produce the largest number of deaf-mutes. There, on an average, one is found to every 800 inhabitants. The beautiful plains which occupy the centre of the country, on the contrary, contain only one in 1600 inhabitants. The high summits of the Alps, the chain of the Pyrénées, the precipices of the Jura, the flanks of Cevennes, the volcanic soil of Puy-de-Dôme, the rocky Corsica, the rugged regions of Lozère and Cantal, comprehend the provinces most afflicted with deaf-dumbness. There are twenty departments which contain one deaf mute in 600, in 700, in 800, or in 900 inhabitants, whilst those fertile districts in the interior, which extend themselves by an inclined plain from the western slope of the Alps, of Jura, and of the Vosges towards the Atlantic, contain a much lower proportion; about forty departments exhibit only one deaf-mute in 1300, 1400, 1500, and so on even to 2000 inhabitants. "The departments which are about to follow are under similar conditions of climate, temperature, and topographic hygiène; they are Gard, at the foot of the Cevennes, which has one deaf-mute in 910 inhabitants; Cantal, covered with a population thrown on the granite soil of High Auvergne, counting one deaf-mute in 917 inhabitants; the Lower Alps, shaded by Mount Viso and the neck of Argentière, and constantly exposed to unhealthy cold and damp winds, producing one deaf-mute in 927 inhabitants; the Eastern Pyrénées, overlooked by the high summits of the neck of Perche, the neck of Arras, and the neck of Pertuis, showing one deaf and dumb in 928 inhabitants; and, lastly, the Landes and the Jura, evidently subjected by the nature of the soil and the topographical character to the same morbid vicissitudes, and giving one deaf and dumb respectively to 946 and 976 inhabitants.' The Abbé calls the attention of all who are interested by duty or by their avocations to the observation of these phenomena; he considers that natural consequences may be deduced from the facts he has accumulated, and the observations which he has made, which may tend to shed light on one of the most insolvable and mysterious problems of general hygiène. The average number of deaf-mutes in France is high compared with other countries, and with the proportion assigned to Europe, namely, in France 1 in 1212; in Europe 1 in 1585. In France, as elsewhere, there are social causes at work, producing both congenital and acquired deafness, such as the influence of hereditary predispositions, the intermarriage of blood-relations, the secluded habits of certain communities, and other conditions of life, the moral and physical temperaments, and ignorance of the nature and consequence of certain diseases; and to these, as well as to climate, situation, soil, atmosphere, and other topographical influences, a large proportion of the deaf-dumbness so prevalent must be attributed; at the same time there are anomalies in France as elsewhere, which for the present defy all efforts towards their solution. It is not possible to give such apparently plausible reasons for the greater or less prevalence of deafness in the different counties of England, as the extracts above give with reference to the various departments of France, yet there are some notabilities, as well as some anomalies, which it seems desirable to place on record. Taking the two counties in which deafness appears most to prevail, Herefordshire with 1 in 1054, Worcestershire with 1 in 1160; it appears at first sight that these two counties are among the healthiest in England, both bring to the mind hop-yards, orchards, and fertile lands, watered with fine rivers. Herefordshire, though not mountainous as a whole, is almost hemmed in by high lands; on the north by those of Shropshire, on the west by the Black Mountains and those of Radnorshire, on the east by the Malvern Hills and the Forest of Dean; Worcestershire is almost similarly enclosed, having the Clent and the Lickey Hills on the east, and the Malvern and Abberley Hills on the west; some of these hills are however considered the most healthy districts in England. It is not surprising to find Derbyshire and Cornwall respectively with 1 in 1272 and 1 in 1278 inhabitants deaf and dumb. Both experience and tradition point to mineral districts and exposed maritime coasts as unwholesome to the constant dwellers there. Derbyshire has long been known as a county in which goitre prevails, and glandular swellings, arising from struma, are often the cause of deafness. Cornwall, though mild in climate, is exposed to the heavy clouds from the Atlantic, surcharged with moisture, which being contorrents of rain. The prevalent moisture in this case may be favourable to conditions which produce congenital or acquired deafness. The next group of counties, with their proportions of deafness varying from 1 in 1406 of the inhabitants to 1 in 1493, are Dorsetshire, Devon "With the map of France before us, if we trace to the east the continuous barrier which stretches from the woody Ardennes and the Argonne to the Vosges, and which goes on from the Vosges to the Jura, to the Alps, to the Cevennes, to the Pyrénées, along the frontiers of Baden, Switzerland, Sardinia, the borders of the Mediterranean and Spain, there will be found in Lorraine, Alsace, Franche-Comté, Bresse, Bugey, Dauphiné, Forez, Limagne, Velais, Gévaudan, Vivarais, Rouer-densed by the high lands in the centre of the county, pour forth gue, Rousillon, Bigorre, Béarn, Gascony, rural populations which have lived for ages in the shades of their forests, on the craggy sides of their mountains, or near to the uncultivated borders of their marshy lakes. One can easily imagine that congenital or acquired deafness, and con shire, South Wales, Wiltshire, Somersetshire, Essex, and Shropshire; all these are maritime districts except the last; the mere vicinity of the sea in these fine climates of the south of England cannot surely be favourable to the production of deafness, and we must look for some other cause for the mysterious visitation. Shall we look for it in social causes? There is much struma on the coast, but it often arises from the poverty of the population-irregular work and wages-unequal and often poor feeding-exposure to weather-and bad dwellings without due means of ventilation; these observations apply to most of the fishing-towns in all parts of the kingdom. We next come to North Wales and Gloucestershire, with respectively 1 in 1514 and 1 in 1565 of their population deaf-mutes; the districts are very dissimilar in their physical features as well as in their geographical position; the same cause for deafness can scarcely have struck them both. The next group of counties with a proportion of from 1 in 1614 to 1 in 1674, includes Buckinghamshire, Westmoreland, the West Riding of Yorkshire, Sussex, and Berkshire. Westmoreland, with its lofty mountains and barren moors, has then to sympathise with the pleasant and fertile vales of Buckingham, and the manufacturing industry of West Yorkshire with the downs of Sussex: truly the physical characteristics here are too conflicting to account for the striking similarity in these proportions. In the next gradation, namely, from 1 in 1714 to 1754, are the counties of Rutland, Suffolk, Bedford, the North Riding of Yorkshire, and Norfolk; all these are agricultural counties, and on the eastern side of the country, but there seems no reason for their greater degree of exemption from deaf-muteism than some that have been previously named. Northumberland, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Staffordshire, Lincolnshire, Hertfordshire, and Cheshire present proportions varying from 1 in 1818 to 1 in 1874, but with no apparent reason why Lincolnshire on the east, Cheshire on the west, and Northumberland on the north, should produce such similar results. The counties which contain respectively 1 in 1917, 1 in 1947, and 1 in 1958, are Cumberland, Surrey, and Leicestershire; so that Cumberland, on the Solway, is more favoured than its nearest neighbour Westmoreland, notwithstanding its greater proximity to the sea; and Leicestershire and Surrey, both inland, populous, manufacturing, and highly cultivated, have no immunity from these causes. Hampshire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Lancashire, and Nottinghamshire vary in their proportions from 1 deaf-mute in 2000 to 1 in 2088; the same dissimilarity in position, and in the occupations of the people prevails here as in some of the results we have previously considered, with this notable exception, that three of these counties have large manufacturing populations, and confirm to some extent the truth of the registrar-general's observation, that " a greater degree of prevalency of deaf-dumbness seems to exist in rural and hilly localities than amidst urban and | manufacturing populations." The last group of counties, showing a variation of from 1 in 2215 to 1 in 2488, comprises Middlesex, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Monmouthshire, Kent, and Durham. Here are placed together dense and sparse populations, mountainous and flat districts, and one mining county. Can anything be more dissimilar? Yet these counties are more exempt from deaf-dumbness than any other part of England, save Huntingdonshire! a small county with a rural population, and with one-fifth of its acreage fen-land. If marshy districts were productive of deafness, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, and some portions of Norfolk and Lincolnshire, should have this unfortunate pre-eminence; but if the enumerators of the Census are correct, these counties suffer less in this respect than many others, and we are instructed to seek other causes for the prevalence of the infirmity. We do not totally reject the theory of the Abbé Daras; to a limited extent we are able to confirm it; but we are assured that topographic statistics will not enlighten us generally on the mysterious causes of deafness. We look to medical statistics and to the economy of social life to alleviate some of the evils we have been considering. That there is some connection between the physical character of a country or district and deafness there can be no doubt. In some cantons of Switzerland one deaf-mute is found in 200 inhabitants; Norway and Sardinia again present us with large proportions; and in our own country, the mountainous districts of Scotland and the Penine chain of hills produce analogous results; the plains of England, on the other hand, with a few remarkable exceptions, generally exhibit the smallest proportion of the deaf and dumb; and so it is with the plains of Luxembourg and Würtemberg, and the kingdoms of Tuscany, Bavaria, Belgium, and Holland. In Ireland, as in England, the deaf-mute is found most in the rural and least in the civic districts; the flat counties, such as Roscommon, Westmeath, Dublin, and Kildare, show the fewest cases (1 in 1935), while mountainous Wicklow has 1 in 1031, and Mayo, Limerick, Donegal, Waterford, and also Tipperary, Tyrone, and Fermanagh, the former on the coast, and all presenting mountain ranges, show an average of 1 in 1068. Confirmatory of these views, we can with confidence adduce the following particulars: a very large majority of the pupils who have been admitted into the Yorkshire Institution have been from the district of the West, traversed by the great Penine chain. This chain commences in the Staffordshire moorlands, goes through Derbyshire (the Peak), thence into Yorkshire (Stanedge and Blackstone edge), and extends irregularly northwards (Ingleborough, Wharnside) to the Cumbrian mountains. On the east of this chain of hills, in Yorkshire, an within a few miles of them, are the large towns of Sheffield, This Rotherham, Barnsley, Holmfirth, Huddersfield, Halifax, Dewsbury, Bradford, Leeds, Wakefield, Keighley, Skipton, and Settle. mountainous district, with its towns, has supplied the Institution with 300 out of its 534 pupils; the plain of York with 35, that of Selby with 13, of Doncaster with 32, the North Riding with 37, Hull and the East Riding with 33, and the remaining number have been from localities less definitely characterised. It is true that the dense population of Yorkshire is found in the towns above alluded to, but we have already seen, and the observation has been repeatedly confirmed, that the proportion is much less in towns than in agricultural and hilly districts. A very few years ago the writer of this article visited one of the new rising towns within the influence of this range of hills, for the purpose of inquiring into several cases of deaf and dumb children resident there. He was taken into house after house, and found that he was among a wide circle of relations. At length he made the observation, that many intermarriages seemed to have occurred in the different families, and received this ominous reply: "We're all related here." "No wonder, then," he answered, " at the prevalence of deafness." And this was not a mere guess at the cause of the malady, but was the result of long-continued observation. In addition to the physical conformation or position of a district or country, the seclusion of mountainous localities is unfavourable to social developments; those who are shut out of the world by natural circumstances, or from other causes, are driven to each other for companionship and for nearer ties, and to a certain extent this may account for the prevalence of the deaf and dumb in the cantons of Berne and Argovie, in Switzerland; in Norway; in Sardinia; in Corsica, HautRhin, Isère, Lozère, Cantal, and other mountainous and secluded departments in France; and also to some extent in the remote agricultural districts of our own kingdom. America furnishes us with the following table from the census of 1850. There are other tables to which we have access, but we select this to illustrate a special point :— It appears that among the free coloured population 1 in 2956 is deaf and dumb; among the slaves only 1 in 6221. An American writer says, " In every state north of the Potomac and Ohio, the proportion of deaf and dumb among the coloured population is much greater than in any state south of those rivers, and in the aggregate of the two sections almost four times as great in the northern as in the southern states. It is also to be observed that in the northern states the proportion of deaf and dumb is generally much greater among the coloured than among the white population, whereas in all the southern states the well known are chiefly slaves, whereas at the north they are mostly free. case is precisely the reverse; the coloured population of the south it is If, then, the census has been correctly taken in both sections, we are led to conclude that deafness is frequently occasioned by the want of physical comforts, with which it is well known the slaves of the south are, as a body, much better provided than the free blacks of the north." The above paragraph was written twenty-five years ago, and referred to the American census of 1830; succeeding enumerations perpetuate applicable to the census of 1850. This, however, is not a satisfactory similar proportions to those alluded to, and the observations are fully mode of accounting for the greater prevalency of deafness among the coloured free population, as compared with the white race. The free coloured population of the north are far removed from the genial climate of their race, while the slave populations of the southern states are in the enjoyment of a climate adapted to their nature, and this is a more probable solution of the difficulty than that which attributes the freedom from deafness among the slaves to their possession of more bodily comforts than fall to the lot of the free coloured population of the northern states; besides, there are more deaf and dumb proportionately among the whites in the southern than in the northern states; these whites, chiefly planters and their agents, are in no want of bodily comforts, and it may fairly be inferrred, that the high temperature which is favourable to the slave population of the south is pernicious to the white race, whether European or Anglo-American. Warm countries and plains, as Tuscany and Luxembourg, appear to contain a smaller proportion of the deaf and dumb than cold and mountainous ones. Change of clintate has doubtless an influence in promoting a tendency to certain diseases in a new generation, and probably to some of those productive of deafness; but this result will only follow where the transition is violent, as from a cold or temperate to a hot climate, and the reverse. To secure the highest conditions of health, every race should therefore confine itself to its own natural latitudes. The report of the Irish commissioners on the "Status of Disease" must be considered as one of the most valuable contributions that has ever been produced on those infirmities to which humanity is subject; such a report for the United Kingdom, when the census is again taken, would be invaluable to all institutions established for the alleviation of permanent maladies; and much assistance might be obtained from the officers of such institutions f they were previously apprised of the nature of the inquiries to be made. The science of statistics has still be found in towns than in those resorts of health which citizens usually much to do for the deaf and dumb, but the inferences from topo- seek for their salubriousness, namely, the sea-coasts, the rural, and the graphical causes must always be faulty in accounting for the prevalence mountainous districts. Some additional light will be thrown on this of the malady. Mention has been made of some anomalies which they part of the subject in the article DEAF AND DUMB, VITAL STATISTICS OF, cannot explain; they cannot account for the discrepancies between the and some of the causes which produce and perpetuate deafness, indeneighbouring counties of Monmouth and Hereford, between Hunting- pendent of climate and locality, will therein be considered. donshire and Worcestershire; they cannot show why the healthier The following table is drawn from the census returns for 1851, province of Denmark, the island of Bornholm, should have more than reference being made to the pages in which detailed information will be double the proportion of deaf and dumb that are found in Laaland and found respecting each county; the portion referring to Ireland is taken Falster, which are considered the unhealthiest parts of the kingdom; from the report of the commissioners; special attention will be directed nor why, generally, there are proportionably fewer deaf and dumb to to a few points in it, chiefly in the words of the registrar-general:NUMBER AND AGES OF MALES AND FEMALES RETURNED AS DEAF AND DUMB. The aggregate number of the deaf and dumb would be increased by a considerable addition to the column "under 5 years," but for the difficulty of ascertaining the existence of deafness, and consequent dumbness, in the early years of life, and the natural indisposition of parents to form a painful conclusion on the subject while the slightest grounds for doubt exist. A rough estimate of the omissions from this cause may be made by assuming the deaf mutes under 5 years of age to bear the same proportion to the general population of the same age as the deaf and dumb aged 5 years and upwards bear to the residue of the population. Under this assumption, the number returned under 5 years would be 1801 deaf mutes, instead of 560. In Ireland it is ARTS AND SCL DIV. VOL. III. assumed on similar grounds that the number returned under the first quinquennial period should be 492 instead of 227. Under this hypothesis the proportion of deaf and dumb in the United Kingdom would be increased from 1:1590 to 1:1460. In Great Britain the greatest number was returned between the ages of 5 and 15, then between 15 and 30; after 50 there is a very sensible diminution, showing that the deaf and dumb are not, like the blind, long-lived. In Ireland the greatest number was returned between the ages of 15 and 30, with a similar diminution after 50. Of the 21,487 blind persons in Great Britain, only 2929, or less than 14 per cent., are under 20 years of age, a circumstance tending to show that cases of D D |