Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1904 — A Million or More of Deaf Mutes. [ARTICLE]

A Million or More of Deaf Mutes.

Recent estimation places the number of deaf mutes in the world at more than 1,000,000. This great number of human beings, living a life which a normal person cannot conceive, is destined to increase because of the tendency of these people to marry persons laboring under the same disability. Examination of the records of 4,500 marriages of deaf persons shows 9 per cent of the children to be deaf, while only one-tenth of 1 per cent of the offspring of an equal, number of marriages of normal persons are likely to be afflicted with deafness. Deaf parents whose relatives are not deaf run no greater chances of having deaf children than persons ■who can hear, but in the case of normal persons in whose families there are members who are deaf the danger of deaf children is, according to Professor E. A. Fay, who has studied the question, just as great as among deaf people.— New York Press. •