To Relieve the Deaf.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 238, 16 October 1901, Page 4

To Relieve the Deaf.

WIIAT ELECTRICITY PROMISES. Some remarkably successful experiments have been made in New York with a new electrical device for enabling the deal' to hear, Tour thousand deaf mutes are said to have been experinn nted upon in the presence oi American atuists and physicians, the device being like that which a switchboard attendant wears clamped to the head when engaged in telephone work. One of these instruments was worn by each patient, while tiro inventor spoke into a tube resembling an ordinary receiver, a wire conductor connecting each mason. When the deaf mutes heard a sound or a word by means oi the instrument, (hey were told by sign language what it meant, and were with much patient effort taught to reproduce it again with their lips. For the deaf a different instrument was used, but one acting upon the same primary principle as that used for the instruction of deaf mutes —the principle of the intensification of sound waves by means of electrical conductors acting upon a sensitive diaphragm. For these cases a small dry storage battery, no larger than a pocket iiask, is worn under tiic outer clothing, where its presence would no more be suspected than would that of a well Tilled wallet. A wire running down the coat sleeve connects the battery with a small metallic disc as big as a watch. In conversation the speukei holds a similar ■ disc beside liis lips, while the deaf man holds , his to his ear. The two discs, however, do ■ not need to be connected. Another device in tiie shape of a receiver i is intended to enable the deaf to listen to the l music of a concert in a public hall or to hear i the conversation around a dining (able or in i a private ollice. This attachment is not , much larger than an opera glass.