ion in life as may be, and it has been
established by well authenticated data, that when all the blind have
died, there will still be about half of the seeing ones alive. In other
words, the chance of life among the blind is only about half what it is
among the seeing. The standard of bodily health and vigor, then, being
so much lower among the blind, the inevitable inference is that mental
power and ability will be proportionably less also; for such is the
dependence of the mind upon the body, that there can be no continuance
of mental health and vigor without bodily health and vigor.

It is also true that _the deaf and dumb, as a class, are inferior to
other persons in mental power and ability_. The general reasons for this
are the same as those already given in the case of blind persons, and
need not hence be repeated. The truth of this proposition is established
beyond a doubt by the concurrent testimony of those who have had the
greatest experience with this unfortunate class of persons both in this
country and in Europe. The report of the directors of the American
Asylum for the year 1845 shows that two pupils had died during the year.
One of these had an affection of the lungs which terminated in
consumption, and the disease of the other was dropsy on the brain. In a
third, hereditary consumption was rapidly developing itself. Others,
still, had been subject to more or less of bodily indisposition.

After speaking of the case of a young man in whom _hereditary
consumption_ had been rapidly developed, the following statement is
introduced: "This great destroyer of our race is found extensively in
Europe, as well as in our own country, to be a _common disease among the
deaf and dumb_. It is brought on by scrofula, by fevers, by violent
colds, and by various other causes; and there is often, no doubt, _a
hereditary tendency to it in families connected by blood_". If this is
the effect of the loss of one of the senses upon the _bodily health_,
keeping in view the principle already stated, we shall naturally enough
be led to inquire what the influence is upon the _health of the mind_. A
careful examination of the educational statistics of several states has
convinced me that an unusually large proportion of the deaf and
dumb--and perhaps an equally large proportion of the blind, and
especially those who have remained uneducated and unenlightened--have
been visited with mental derangement, and have _lived and died insa