Harancour Palace; or the Orphan Protected is based on a play by the French writer Jean-Nicolas Bouilly (1763-1842), Deaf and dumb : or, The orphan protected. : an historical drama, in five acts.  The story involves the Abbé de l’Epée who rescues the orphaned son of a French aristocrat, the Count de Sola, who has been rejected by his guardian, D’Arlemont.  Everything ends happily as in all good melodramas,  with the hero restored to his inheritance.

This book was published in 1802 as a prose version of the play, presumably cashing in on the success of the English version of the play, put on at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1801. Our copy has some of the pages misnumbered, for which no doubt some poor apprentice got a good beating, and that may explain why the binding is not hard but is parchment. Even more intriguingly, the inside of this parchment has an old legal document written on it, see below.  This was not uncommon, as the bookbinders were careful not to waste valuable material.  It seems to be a will, and you will note that no spaces are left between words so nothing can be added afterwards.  I defer to those of you who are familiar with old hand writing to try to date it or read it – perhaps 18th century?

In 2011 Gallaudet produced a satirical play based on the Bouilly piece.  Bouilly has another link with deafness – he was the author of the libretto that formed the basis of Beethoven’s opera Fidelio.

Note: I had missed an obvious typo in the title and put Harancour Place instead of Palace!  Apologies for my sloppiness…

I have now added the complete document –  note that the printer confused the pagination quite a bit. PDFsam_Harancour

Among the curious mix or archives and books in the library, we have this interesting register that was used to record loans of books by the Arnold Library (1898-1922).  This was the library of the National Association of Teachers for the deaf (N.A.T.D.).  The nucleus was formed by the collection of the late Rev. Thomas Arnold, with additions from Mr J.Howard, Dr William Stainer and others.  In 1905 the librarian was a Mr J.D. Rowan of the Deaf Schools, Versailles Rd, Anerley, which is in south east London.   It seems to have remained there until 1912 when it was taken over by the National Bureau for the Promoting the General Welfare of the Deaf and housed in their rooms at Holborn.

In 1921 we read in The Teacher of the Deaf that there were arguments in the N.A.T.D. over whether the library should stay there.  “A discussion ensued, Messrs. Craig, Greenslade, and B.P. Jones urging that the Library should be transferred to Manchester, while Miss Croghan, Messrs. Addison, Brown and Ince Jones, spoke in favour of the Committee’s recommendation.”  The decision went against a move at that time, but by April 1922 the idea was back on the agenda, being urged now by A.J. Story.  It was agreed to open negotiations and on September 16th the Library Committee reported that the sale was completed for £350.  The sale seems to have been at the time when the National Bureau was at its weakest, just before it was revived.  I believe some books that were not required by Manchester were retained.

Early borrowers of books include Miss E.F. Boultbee, who borrowed Van Praagh’s Lipreading, Miss Bodily who borrowed Peet’s Language Lessons, Frank Barnes, and A. Farrar (a former pupil of Arnold) who borrowed a variety of historical material including the 1880 Milan Congress report.  Below I chose pages from 100 years ago – click for a larger image and see what J.H. Haine of the Hugh Myddelton School and W.C. Roe of Derby were borrowing in the months at the beginning of the Great War.

The Arnold Library Fund, British Deaf Monthly Vol.7, No.79, May 1898

The Teacher of the Deaf, Vol.19 (various issues with the committee reports), Vol. 20, p.57, 157

Until the middle of the 18th century, thinking about the way the inner ear worked was still dominated by Aristotle’s idea of “aer implantus”.

There were only a few who dared to speak out against this view.  Schelhammer in 1684 expressed a doubt that there was an implanted air in the ear, but offered no substitute. Valsalva (1704), Vieussens (1714), and Cassebohm (1734) suggested the prescence of fluid but made little of it for they still spoke of the “aer implantus.”  In 1739, Boerhaave quite specifically spoke of the prescence of fluid in the labyrinth. (Bast and Anson 1949)

Domenico Cotugno, a pioneer of neuroscience, was the first person to prove the presence of a serous fluid in the labyrinth and the first to associate this with sound transmission.  He believed that sound waves move the stapes which in turn move the labyrinthine fluid, considered that tones could be perceived by the semicircular canals but were analyzed in the cochlea (ibid).

When he was only 25, in 1761, his dissertation, Aquaeductibus auris humane internae, predated the work of Hermann von Helmholtz.  In it he described the vestibule, semicircular canals, and cochlea.  He demonstrated the labyrinthine fluid, and considered mechanisms of resonance, sound transmission, and hearing.  He depicted the columns in the bony spiral lamina of the cochlea known as Cotunnius’ columns.  His description of the nasopalatine nerve, and its role in sneezing anticipated Antonio Scarpa’s work. (Pearce 2004)

Born in Ruvo di Puglia, Cotugno was educated at a Jesuit school then was sponsored by the Duke d’Andria to attend the University of Naples, working in the Ospedale degli Incurabili.  He spent many hours studying in the library, a time he said that was the happiest of his life (hint!).  He received his doctorate from the Salerno Medical School in 1756.

Cotugno is an outstanding example of a humanistic physician. I addition to being one of the most prominent scientists of his time, he was also interested in art, architecture, nusismatics and antiquities. He accumulated a remarkable private library, a small part of which is still conserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples (Böni et al 1994)

When he died he left a large sum of money to the Ospedale degli Incurabili, now known as the Ospedale Domenico Cotugno.

His two illustrations from Auris humane are shown here.

De aquaeductibus auris humane internae anatomica dissertatio. 1761

Böni T, Benini A, Dvorak J. Domenico Felice Antonio Cotugno.  Spine (Phila Pa 1976). 1994 Aug 1;19(15):1767-70

Theodore H. Bast and Barry J. Anson.  The temporal bone and the ear. 1949

In 1819 John England published A treatise on the education of the deaf and dumb.  England says (p.vi) “It is not necessary, in this address, to enter into a detail explaining all the means by which I acquired the art of communicating instruction to the Deaf and Dumb: suffice it, therefore, to state in this place, that I have derived my information more from the local situations, and adventitious circumstances in which I was placed in my younger years, than to any systematic instruction received from other teachers.”  That is a pity as it would be very interesting to know how he became involved in teaching Deaf children.

England, ‘Teacher to the Institution under the Patronage of the Northern Society for Educating the Deaf and Dumb, in Aberdeen’, set up a day school in Skene Street around 1818.  It was a rival of the Aberdeen Institution but was clearly unable to compete.

England praises Sicard but reserves most praise for Moret (p.36-7)

But of all the methods hitherto tried to infuse instruction into the minds of the deaf and dumb, none come up to the experiments of M. de Moret.

M. de Moret, by order of the French government, commenced his labours upon four deaf children in 1813, which he has continued up to the present day.  The experiments of M. de Moret are highly interesting to humanity.  He has acquired the art of infusing into the minds of his deaf pupils, by means of their eyes, a capability of giving utterance to their thoughts in an intelligible voice ; and without screams, to read in a natural tone, to write to verbal dictation ; and to originate and adapt ideas to things that are proper for them.  He has succeeded completely in adding to their natural stock of ideas, and in giving them an exact knowledge of language, and things abstracted from the senses.  He has enabled them to converse intelligibly with other men, without putting into requisition any outward signs, whereby to make themselves understood.  It is by an attention to the motion of the speaker’s lips in the light, and by touching in the dark, that they are enabled to comprehend his import : and, by these several means, he has given the deaf and dumb facilities of education by no means inferior to those enjoyed by persons who have their faculties perfect.  This unexampled success, which appears almost a phenomenon, evinces indubitably, that M. de Moret has arrived at the highest stage of perfection in the art of teaching the deaf and dumb, which has hitherto been attained.

Just after this England says,

I have at present two pupils, the one blind and the other deaf and dumb ; and, strange-as it may appear, they can communicate their ideas to each other by signs and feeling, so as the one can comprehend what the other wants to infuse. The dumb pupil instructs the blind by the sense of feeling, and makes the
latter understand him by touching different parts of his body : and the blind pupil conveys his meaning to the deaf and dumb by signs and outward motions.

If he had only two pupils, clearly this ‘pamphlet’, as he calls it, was an attempt to recruit more, for he goes on to point out potential numbers of Deaf children in Aberdeen.

You can see the book in our collection, or read the full book online via the Charles Baker collection at Gallaudet.

If you know more about John England or his school, do post a comment.

Apologies for the lack of posts over September – holidays intervened and we had a surfeit of posts from the summer exhibition.

We do have some curious books.  I just came across this –
“Finger Plays for Kindergarten and Home” by Nora Semmens, Ethel M.Lord and A.R. Gosman.

I would imagine it is from the period aringd 1900-1920, if only from the Edwardian style sleeve visible in some of the photographs.

The authors were Australian, which probably explains why the British Library does not have a copy.  Our copy has Selwyn Oxley’s usual spidery scrawl in the front!