Laura Bridgman. The recent death of Laura Bridgman has called out k great many reminiscences of this remarkable woman. We do not at this day realize the intense interest which her case at one time aroused ; and certainly there has been no reference so far as we know to the important data her history furnishes to pedagogy and psychology. The general facts regarding Laura Bridgman are well known. How at the age of twenty-six months she lost entirely her sense of sight and hearing and to a great extent her sense of smell and taste; and how until she was eight years of age she received no at
Laura Bridgman. The recent death of Laura Bridgman has called out k great many reminiscences of this remarkable woman. We do not at this day realize the intense interest which her case at one time aroused ; and certainly there has been no reference so far as we know to the important data her history furnishes to pedagogy and psychology. The general facts regarding Laura Bridgman are well known. How at the age of twenty-six months she lost entirely her sense of sight and hearing and to a great extent her sense of smell and taste; and how until she was eight years of age she received no at tempts at education. At this time it is known that she had quite lost all memory of her life before her sickness ; she retained absolutely no visual or auditory memories. Dr. Howe's success in teaching her to talk with the hands to write read etc. is also a familiar story. Most interesting now to medical men is a study of her physiological and psychological condition made by Professor Stanley Hall just ten years ago. He found her totally unable to see or appreciate sensations of light from any kind of stimulus. Her deafness was equally complete ; but she could appreciate different kinds of vibrations and even knew her friends by their step. This must have been done however by the tactile or muscular sense. Her sense of smell and that of taste were dull. The tactile sense showed the most acute and remark able development and as recorded by Hall was as follows : Tip of tongue inch. Tip of right forefinger volar surface 1-35 ' Hips 1-20 ' Tip of second finger 1-17 ' Tip of third finger 1-14 ' Tip-of fourth finger 1-13 ' The sensitiveness of the face at various parts was also very great and the measurements in general showed an acuteness of touch two or three times greater than the average. But the ordinary tests made with the artheriometer gave no adequate idea of her exquisite contact sense which amounted to a kind of normal hypertesthesia so that even specks of dust alighting
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