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The first institutions for children classified as 'deaf-mute' were established in Switzerland at the beginning of the 19th century. The administrative intervention, based on enlightened thinking, was intended to educate deaf children in order to turn them into useful members of society via temporary social exclusion. This essay considers related problems by focusing on the Taubstummenanstalt Hohenrain, Canton Lucerne, from 1847 to 1942. It examines how social normality was defined and negotiated ex negativo in an institutional context. Based on the premise of the mutual organization of discourse and practice, it shows how in the field of educating the deaf a medical premise displaced the primary pedagogically motivated discourse. This had a major impact not only on the discourse, but also on the administrative practice of the care homes for the 'deaf-mute'. By the end of the 19th century deafness was more and more considered as a disease; the focus of institutional approach was on healing or at least on therapy of deafness. This resulted not only in an increased marginalisation and discrimination of deaf people, but also had implications for identity-building processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]