An old man sits asleep with his hands clasped while an old lady looks down at something she is holding in her hands. Etching by W. Geikie.

[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified]

1 print : etching ; image 15.5 x 11.9 cm

We. Geikie.

Wellcome Collection 27644i

Walter Geikie was profoundly deaf. He lost his hearing as a result of illness at the age of two years and therefore never learnt to speak. According to Thomas Frognal Dibdin, who knew Walter Geikie personally, although Geikie "conversed with you by means of a slate ... his utterance of " Yes" and " No" was sufficiently articulate" (T. F. Dibdin, Bibliographical, antiquarian and picturesque tour in the northern counties of England and in Scotland, 1838)