Vibravox Deaf Speaker
date: label: date made
content: before 1966
notes: label: Description
content: Acoustic device with a “VIBRAVOX / DEAF SPEAKER / TYPE-C PATENT PENDING / R. C. BURT / PASADENA” inscription. Frederick Bedell (1868-1958) was a Yale graduate with a Ph.D. from Cornell University who spent his career as a professor of physics at Cornell. His 1935 patent, the basis of the Vibravox Deaf Speaker, described a “means for enabling the deaf to hear, and in particular to apparatus by which the sound vibrations are transmitted thru the bony structure of the head instead of through the ear drum.” Robert Cady Burt (1896-1984) was a son-in-law of Dr. Bedell. The donor, Caroline B. Thomas, was a daughter of Dr. Bedell, a sister-in-law of Mr. Burt, and a physiologist on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
label: Description
content: Ref: Frederick Bedell, “Apparatus for Bone Audition,” U.S. Patent 1,986,955 (Jan. 8, 1935).
label: Description
content: "Cornell Physicist Lets Guests 'Sip' Music By Device for Deaf to Hear Through Teeth," New York Times (July 1, 1930), p. 1.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.M-13042
label: catalog number
content: M-13042
label: accession number
content: 287879
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Deaf Speaker
label: Object Name
content: deaf speaker
label: Other Terms
content: Deaf Speaker; Medicine
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 5/8 in x 12 in x 17 in; 11.7475 cm x 30.48 cm x 43.18 cm