Atkinson, Alexander

One of the first students enrolled in John Braidwood's Edinburgh Deaf and Dumb Institution. Became deaf from measles and/or a neglected tumor on his right ear, though the superstitious "medicine" of the time attributed it to his pregnant mother's being frightened during a loud thunderstorm. Despite ambitions in other directions, he was forced to follow his father into the tailoring business. Autobiography is Memoirs of My Youth (1865).