person is meant one totally dumb, and
not one who merely speaks with difficulty; for it often happens that
even men of culture and learning by some cause or other lose the
faculties of speech and hearing. Hence relief has been afforded them by
our constitution, which enables them, in certain cases and in certain
modes therein specified, to make a will and other lawful dispositions.
If a man, after making his will, becomes deaf or dumb through ill health
or any other cause, it remains valid notwithstanding.

4 A blind man cannot make a will, except by observing the forms
introduced by a law of our imperial father Justin.

5 A will made by a prisoner while in captivity with the enemy is
invalid, even though he subsequently returns. One made, however,
while he was in his own state is valid, if he returns, by the law of
postliminium; if he dies in captivity it is valid by the lex Cornelia.

TITLE XIII. OF THE DISINHERISON OF CHILDREN

The law, however, is not completely satisfied by the observance of the
rules hereinbefore explained. A testator who has a son in his power must
take care either to institute him heir, or to specially disinherit him,
for passing him over in silence avoids the will; and this rule is so
strict, that even if the son die in the lifetime of the father no heir
can take under the will, because of its original nullity. As regards
daughters and other descendants of either sex by the male line, the
ancients did not observe this rule in all its strictness; for if these
persons were neither instituted nor disinherited, the will was not
avoided, but they were entitled to come in with the instituted heirs,
and to take a certain portion of the inheritance. And these persons the
ascendant was not obliged to specially disinherit; he could disinherit
them collectively by a general clause.

1 Special disinherison may be expressed in these terms--'Be Titius
my son disinherited,' or in these, 'Be my son disinherited,' without
inserting the name, supposing there is no other son. Children born
after the making of the will must also be either instituted heirs or
disinherited, and in this respect are similarly privileged, that if a
son or any other family heir, male or female, born after the making of
the will, be passed over in silence, the will, though originally valid,
is invalidated by the subsequent birth of the child, and so becomes
completely void. Consequently, if the woman from whom a child was
expe