The history of man is full of cruelty towards those whose sickness we have been unable to understand. For thousands of years, for example, deaf-mutes were treated as if they were dangerous to society. In many countries they were regarded as idiots and were locked up in asylums. Very often they were killed to get them out of the way.

In the sixteenth century a man came along who wanted to do something to help the deaf-mutes. He was an Italian doctor named Jerome Cardan who believed that deaf-mutes could be taught by using written characters. His work attracted great interest, and by the seventeenth century, a finger alphabet was worked out which was similar to the finger alphabet in use today.

It took another hundred years, however, before the first public school for deaf-mutes was established at Leipzig, Germany. Today, every civilized country in the world has institutions for educating its deaf and hard-of-hearing.

Most people call a person who has lost any of his sense of hearing deaf. Actually, this term should be used only for those who were born. without hearing or who lost their hearing before they learned to talk. Loss of hearing is caused in many ways. It may come about through some disease, or through severe injury to the head, or through some thing being wrong with the inner ear.

Why can’t deaf people talk? Nearly always, it’s because the deaf person never heard spoken words! It is a condition that can be remedied. In fact, nearly all deaf children with normal intelligence can learn to talk if they are given special instruction.

Up to about seventy-five years ago, the deaf were taught to communicate ideas almost entirely by means of signs, facial expression, and the finger alphabet. With the hand alphabet, some deaf-mutes can spell out words at the rate of 130 a minute! But they still depend mostly on sign language. For example, the forefinger rubbed across the lips means, “You are not telling me the truth.” A tap on the chin with three fingers means, “My uncle.”

Today, the deaf are taught to understand what is said to them and even to speak themselves. They learn to speak by watching the lips of the speaker, and by observing and feeling the lips and vocal organs of the teacher and then imitating the motions.