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PHYSICAL EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB. 675 
family physician will look after it, but in the cottages of the poor this 
help is wanting. 
The more movement and change of mode of life the deaf-mute child 
nas, the more it is incited and prepared for the development of oral lan- 
guage. With normal children this is the time of their greatest evolution 
in speech. This is also the period of the greatest spontaneous movement. 
The hearing child practices his speech seldom while in a state of full bodily 
rest, but dlong with moving, catching, walking, and running. The deaf- 
mute child without instruction does not learn the formation of articulated 
sounds of speech. 
The influence of deafness on the development of the lungs cannot be 
especially great if the deaf-mute child is early incited to talk and receives 
instruction in speech. We can see this in the well-known fact that the 
small deaf-mute child usually laughs and cries as much and as loud as the 
hearing child and thereby exercises the lungs. A great number of deaf- 
mutes do not become deaf before a later age, after they have learned to 
speak. The neglected exercise of oral language is undoubtedly a great 
disadvantage to the physical development of deaf-mutes. 
Instructors of experience with deaf-mutes think that loud speaking is 
most advantageous for the health of the deaf-mutes ; that the instruction 
In oral language ought to be introduced generally and as early as possible. 
The oral language is the principal means, fixed by nature, for strengthen- 
Ing the breast organs, which are always weak with the deaf-mutes. Oral 
language is for the deaf-mutes the real gymnastic-hygienic exercise. When 
she celebrated Gall performed the duties of a physician in a deaf-and-dumb 
asylum at Vienna, he observed that after introduction of oral language 
the diseases of the lungs were rarer than before. 
Every deaf-mute who is fit for education ought to get instruction in 
oral language, particularly on account of his physical education. Speak- 
ing implies an activity of breathing conducive to the ventilation of the 
lungs that we do not find in any other human performance. While 
the usual breathing is done regularly, and inspiration and expiration are 
of nearly equal duration, in speaking the inspiration is short and deep, 
but the expiration long and often interrupted. The speaking requires a 
more frequent and deeper inspiration, therefore an increased ventilation, 
which is beneficial for the lungs. And not only for the lungs is the 
speaking of beneficial effect, but for other important organs. Arthur 
Ames Bliss, a well-known laryngologist in Philadelphia, Pa., has recently 
made examinations with four hundred and fifteen deaf-mutes, of whom 
shree hundred and three were taught only by the sign-language. With these 
he found a far greater number of deformities than with those taught by 
oral language. These defects were in the nares, at the tongue, at the 
palate, at the tonsils, at the pharynx, at the larynx, and at the vocal 
bands. Most of the deaf-mutes who did not use oral language had vocal