Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris

School for the Deaf in Paris, France

Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris

Location

Paris France
Information
Type	Public
Established	1760; 264 years ago (1760)
Website	www.injs-paris.fr

Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris (French: [ɛ̃stity nɑsjɔnal də ʒœn suʁ də paʁi], National Institute for Deaf Children of Paris) is the current name of the school for the Deaf founded by Charles-Michel de l'Épée, in stages, between 1750 and 1760^[1] in Paris, France.

After the death of Père Vanin in 1759, the Abbé de l'Épée was introduced to two deaf girls who were in need of a new instructor. The school began in 1760 and shortly thereafter was opened to the public and became the world's first free school for the deaf. It was originally located in a house at 14 rue des Moulins, butte Saint-Roch, near the Louvre in Paris.^[2] On July 29, 1791, the French legislature approved government funding for the school and it was renamed: "Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets à Paris"."^[3]

Prosper Menière was physician from 1838 to his death in 1862. In 1861, Menière reported to the Académie Nationale de Médecine on several of his patients from the school who had experienced vertigo associated with their hearing loss, which formed the controversial basis for his theory that the inner ear was the origin of vertigo.^[4]

References

^ Gallaudet Almanac, 1974, page 233.
^ Painting of school at original location on 14 rue des Moulins
^ Illustration by Auguste Colas (1894, Paris), in: Gannon, Jack. 1981. Deaf Heritage–A Narrative History of Deaf America, Silver Spring, MD: National Association of the Deaf, p. xxii
^ Baloh, 2016. "Vertigo: Five Physician Scientists and the Quest for a Cure." ISBN 978-0-19-060012-9