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Chapter Three - Coggle Diagram
Chapter Three
In 1805, Gallaudet started working with Chauncey Goodrich in his law office.
He also worked with Thomas S. Williams, a prominent lawyer.
He only lasted a year in this practice, and no one knows why he left the profession. People assume it was due to his health.
In a letter, he claims to have been sick for ten years, but the timeline doesn't add up as in those 10 years, he completed two degrees, a three year course study, two years of tutoring, and a year in the law office.
He says in the letter that his eyes and lungs are weak, and by that he meant he had to wear glasses which was unusual at the time because he was so young. Some assumed he had TB, but that is not the case. More likely, he was suffering from allergies which were much less common back then.
He usually gave vague excuses about his health. In this time, it was common to use that to get out of things you didn't want to do. Today, we just say we're too busy.
It sounds like Gallaudet suffered from depression, and there was less of a stigma back then. He also likely suffered from anxiety. His father suffered from these as well, and used outdoor exercise to help.
He also suffered from opiate addiction and no one knows how long this continued. He also did not receive the pleasure that commonly accompanied opium.
Opium could be acquired without a prescription and was widely used as medicine for basically anything, including but not limited to depression.
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Gallaudet was extremely prone to infectious diseases. He actually died due to dysentery, while his wife and children recovered
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Gallaudet met a farmer who was late-deafened and because he read lips fairly successfully and spoke clearly since English was his first language. He took this to mean that all deaf people could learn to do this, but he had yet to differentiate between those who are deaf and deafened.
A lot of Gallaudet's study of literature and the English language worked with out of context excerpts and this led him to misquoting things he thought served his goal, but actually did not.
There is a story of Gallaudet dancing at a party and someone tells him of a tragedy that has just occurred and Gallaudet's response was to not inform anyone because it would kill the mood. He then realized how insensitive that sounded and resigned himself to never dance again.
The book says that clarity was Gallaudet's forte when speaking in front of a congregation, but he was never considered memorizing. This is ironic because his writing confuses me.