Come in, Make yourself comfortable,
Have a cup of cappuccino,
and Enjoy learning about Deaf History!

Rudolphus Agricola, 1443-1485, was interested in the Deaf and wrote a book "De Inventione Dialectica". He wrote that a person who is born Deaf can express himself by putting down his thoughts in writing. The book was never published till a 100 years later.

Girolamo Cardano, 1501-1576 was a Italian physician concerned about his Deaf child, Cardano came across Agricola's book. He agreed that the "sense of hearing and the use of spoken words were not indispensable to understanding ideas." Cardano also believed that the Deaf need to learn to read and write. "True, it is difficult but possible." "We can, in reality, manifest our thoughts either with words or with gestures." Cardano invented some kind of code for teaching but did not purse it instead went on studying other medicines.

Pedro Ponce De Leon, 1520-1584, Catholic monk, established the world's first school for the Deaf at the Monastery of San Salvador near Madrid, Spain where he taught till his death. "He taught the Deaf mutes from birth to speak." Peter of Ponce first taught them "to write while showing them with his finger the object which was named by the written characters; then drilling them to repeat with the vocal organs the words which correspond to these characters." He was the inventor of this art and each pupil reasoned very well. He kept records of his methods and results but were destroyed in a fire. "In spite of his success and the favorable publicity of his work, at his death it seemed to die with him."

Juan Pablo Bonet, 1579-1620 - In 1620, he published his famous book "Simplification of Sounds and the Act of Teaching the Deaf to Speak." He believed Deaf-mute should be forced to learn one hand manual alphabet using pictures illustrating the position of the hand for each letter before learning to speak and lipreading.

John Bulwer, 1614-1684, was English physician published his first two books in 1644 "The Natural Language of the Hand" and another called "The Art of Manual Rhetoric." He was convinced that the "language of the hand" was "the one language that was natural in all men especially for the deafened in the use of a manual alphabet." In 1648, Bulwer published his famous book title "The Deaf and Dumb Man's Friend." This was the first English book explaining "the subject of deafness and its accompanying language problems, but had no bearing on the actual teaching of Deaf persons."

George Dalgarno, ?-1687 - In 1680, Dalgarno published a book titled "The Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor." In this book, he had many theories of the different ways of teaching language to the Deaf. He knew that the Deaf could be taught to speak and lipread, but he felt that using the manual alphabet was more practical. He advised mothers to spell out on their fingers and at the same time point to the object she was naming.

Johamn Konrad Amman, 1698-1774, was a doctor of medicine, but was interested in trying to educate Deaf mutes. He only worked on youths between eight and fifteen years of age. He wanted his pupils to have "a good clear voice and to control it well." He learned that they "could feel the vibrations of his voice," he placed "their hands on his throat as he taught." He also had his pupils use mirrors in the speech practice. Lipreading was also part of the language achievement. He published two books, one in 1692 written in Latin and the other in 1700 called "A Dissertation Speech."