Heinicke, Samuel (1729–1790)

German founder of a school for the deaf. In 1768 he taught a deaf and dumb boy to talk, and 10 years later founded, at Leipzig, the first deaf and dumb institution in Germany. He adopted the methods laid down in Johann Amman's Surdus Loquens/The Talking Deaf Man (1692).

Heinicke was born in Nautschutz, Germany. He fought in the Seven Years' War, and was taken prisoner at Pirna, Germany. He had previously supported himself by teaching and had one deaf and dumb pupil in 1754.