Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris

National Institute for
Deaf Youth of Paris
Institut National de
Jeunes Sourds de Paris
Interior courtyard with the statue of founder Charles-Michel de l'Épée
Address
Map
254, rue Saint-Jacques, Paris, France
Information
Former nameInstitution Nationale des Sourds-Muets à Paris
TypePublic
Established1760; 264 years ago (1760)
FounderCharles-Michel de l'Épée
DirectorÉlodie Hemery
Websitewww.injs-paris.fr

Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris (French: [ɛ̃stity nɑsjɔnal ʒœn suʁ paʁi], National Institute for Deaf Youth of Paris) is a 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]

Following the abolition of the Spanish monarchy in 1931, the Spanish royal family lived in exile in Fontainebleau. Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia, second son of King Alfonso XIII, completed his education at the Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris. The Duke of Segovia was deaf by age 4 as a result of an inner ear infection as a child.[5]

  1. ^ Gallaudet Almanac, 1974, page 233.
  2. ^ Painting of school at original location on 14 rue des Moulins
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ Baloh, 2016. Vertigo: Five Physician Scientists and the Quest for a Cure. ISBN 978-0-19-060012-9
  5. ^ "El tío del Rey Juan Carlos: heredero al trono durante 10 días y muerto en extrañas circunstancias". El Mundo (in Spanish). 16 June 2020. Retrieved 24 September 2024.