New-York tribune., 1912-03-18
HEARS BY HYPNOT|SM
New Cure for Deafness Achieved
by Physician Here.
CASE SEEMED HOPELESS
DR.. Alfred j. Fox's Patient Re-
spends to Treatment After
18 Years Affiiction.

Curing deafness by hypnotic suggestion Is
the latest feat of Dr. Alfred j. Fox, of the
! Hotel Frederick No. 210 West seth street,
who has lately brought TO the notice Of the
public seemingly miraculous cures of blind
ness. infantile paralysis and other organic
diseases pronounced in most instances hope
lessly incurable The subject in the present
case is Frank Hutchinson, of Brooklyn, who
lost his hearing eighteen years ago after an
illness from scarlet fever contracted in
England, and heard no sound from that time
until about two months ago, when the notes
struck by the doctor on his piano awakened
a dim responsive chord in the recesses of
his long silent ears.
Hutchinson was seen yesterday at the
doctors home, just aroused from the hyp-
motto sleep into which nc is thrown FOR
| treatment His voice like that of many
people long deaf had strange cultural
quality, and he talked with something OF
an accent, akin 20 the cockney.
How long have you been in this coun-
! try?" he was asked, and made TO under
stand after considerable difficulty.
| He laughed Everybody takes me for a
| Johnny Bull" he replied. Il was born here
and did not go over TO the other side until
| | was nine years old. ] lost my hearing
when ! was twelve and my father brought
me back the next year
| Several attempts were made TO discover
whether his father was still alive. where
he lived and what his business was. Hutch
inson was able TO catch the simple words.
but a sentence of any length left him COM
! pletely nonplussed. DR. Fox then explained
] that he could hear words spoken in an
ordinary tone Of voice, but could not under
stand many of them because his ear had
| been unfamiliar with them for so long. HIS
hearing vocabulary now included about two
hundred words, he said, and he was picking
| up more every day. The method which the
doctor employed was 10 read aloud to his
patient, allowing him at the same time to
| follow the printed words, so that lie might
connect sounds with the words which he
had hitherto known only by sight
Continuing an explanation OF his method,
the physician said that he had induced
hypnosis when the patient first came 10
him. eight months ago, by writing down
suggestions, which he gave the patient TO
read Hutchinson showed some reluctance
in the beginning, he said, to submit to the
hypnotic influence, fearing that the doctor
might not be able to awaken him on ac-
count Of his lack Of hearing. This difficulty
was overcome, however, by the eXpedent
Of instining into his mind beforehand the
idea that he was to awake when the ply
scan tapped his cheek.
The scarlet fever having inhamed the
structures of the middle ear and left them
dissociated from long unuse, DR.. Fox's first
aim. he said, was to build up the nerve
centres by inducing increased circulation
through suggestion, aided by hot applica-
tions This caused intense pains in the pa
TENTS ears but he was finally rewarded by
feeling that sounds long shut out were at
last beginning to make themselves evident
to his consciousness
Il stin have the 'willies," he remarked.
with an expressive jump, whenever / think
Of the first time / heard an automobile
horn"
Sounds like light raps on table and the
swapping of the fingers were easily audible
to Hutchinson, TO Judge from the way in
which he counted them with his eyes closed.
DIR. Fox is a graduate Of the College OF
Physicians and Surgeons Of Baltimore and
served as Junior physician AT the Manhattan
State Hospital on Wards Island under
Alexander E. Macdonald. Hutchinson is
employed as an egg inspector by firm in
jay street and is the more anxious TO re-
gain his hearing that he may not he deaf
to the mystic words pronounced at the altar
by the girl whom he is soon TO make his
wife