Evening star., 1924-06-29
THE RADIO AND DEAFNESS
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN

people wear to amplify sound for
them. These devices consist of a bat
terry, transmitter and one or two re-
ceivers. improvements in radio ap-
paratus have consequently been ap-
piled to portable hearing devices, and
several electric companies have be-
come interested in the problem of
deaf.
A millionaire, who was determined
to make science overcome his deaf
ness, engaged the services of one of
pany's men studied the millionaire's
case Of deafness and his house. They
experimented carefully. At last they
established a battery about the size
Of a cupboard in the residence. This
battery was connected with each room
aire puts on head phones in any room
and he can catch any sound in 1t.
One of the triumphs of this piece OF
research is that the ear phone for
each ear is constructed to suit the
condition of deafness in that ear. This
means that hearing IN the two ears is
eQualized The deaf person whose
hearing is better in ono ear than in
the other is not able to distinguish
the directions from which sounds
the deaf person has to guess which
door is to be opened. II an automo-
bile horn sounds on the street he has
to look all around to see whence the
warning comes. The millionaire's re-
ceiving apparatus corrects this in
correct inequality of vision.
Cost May Be Reduced.
This man spent thousands Of dol
lars to achieve . semblance Of normal
hearing. Some day portable electric
devices, which WIN be as efficient as
the expensive battery ana wiring,
may be within reach Of every one of
the thousands who are hard Of hear
ing. The apparatus is being devel-
opsd first. Then will come the prob
lem OF making 1t cheap enough to be
practical.
At the recent convention Of oreani-
xations for the hard Of hearing, held
In this city, the assembly hall was
wired by the courtesy of three cleo.
trio firms. The speeches. were broad
cast from the platform and ear phones
OF new and different types were con-
nected at each seat In the hail.
Successful as the best Of the new
yet considered commercially per. .
fected. For one thing. the phones
make q slightly audible noise. when
they were tried in one church FOR
the benefit OF several deaf members,
other persons sitting nearby were
annoyed %.
Another fine of experimental work
which goes hand in hand with the
improvement Of hearing devices is
the development of an audiomet ter,
This is O. machine to measure hearing,
Models have already been produced
which measure the amount of hear
ing possessed by an individual in the
different ranges of tone. Some deaf
people can hear low tones but not
high tones. Others cannot catch the
middle tones Of an ordinary conver-
sation.
what this means to a deaf person
Is explained by warren Pond, a radio
fan who ,is also president of the
New York League for the Hard OF
Hearing. He says, "1 have heard of
ana on, ALL my life, parts OF the
Melody in F by Rubinstein. but never
the entire composition, until it came
to me, over the wire, played as q
cello solo, the deep bass notes Of the
instr ument sounding like . bsautf-
full pipe -organ-the glorious COM
pleteness Of it!'
The audiomAter whAn perfected
will enable the ear specialist to test
hearing with as much accuracy OF