Hearing

Sounds are seen and not heard by many of those who last week in Manhattan attended the eleventh annual conference of the American Federation of Organizations for the Hard of Hearing. If they cannot hear spoken words they can see them by reading the speaker's lips. But the lip-reader's vocabulary must contain the words spoken him. No one can read from another's lips words he does not know.* Some two dozen lip-readers held a tournament at the conference. But because the lip, like the hand, can be quicker than the eye, none made perfect scores. "Prohibition is a noble experiment" looked like "Prohibition is a local experiment." "Do you prefer long skirts or short ones" looked like "Do you prefer fresh water or salt water." Contest winner was Evelyn A. Parry of Manhattan.

The lipreading was, however, only a sportive interlude in the conference's serious discussion on causes and prevention of hearing difficulties.

Heredity is an important cause of hardness of hearing or total deafness. Some children are born deaf and dumb. Others seem to have a "nervous deafness." Dr. Emil Amberg of Detroit noted that this "nervous deafness" is "in the upper ranks of society much more frequently in females than in males. The subjects of it are generally of a sallow complexion, of a phlegmatic disposition, with a thin, cold skin and languid circulation."

Deafness has mental effects which psychiatrists have hardly investigated. Dr. Ruth Brickner of the Child Study Association made an attempt. The person born deaf has his "psychological equilibrium fairly stable from the beginning except that its centre of gravity is determined by forces somewhat different from those of the hearing man." But the deaf person who for years could hear, endures a "psychological amputation." Emotional maladjustment develops, in two typical clinical pictures. The victim becomes depressed or he becomes suspicious. Both types result from primitive rage and hatred in the unconscious mind--in one case by rage and hatred of himself because he has become abnormal, the other by rage with and hatred of others because he thinks they wish to take advantage of his affliction. Rarely are the blind so affected. Ears are more useful than eyes. A person deafened after he once could hear is terrified by his being cut off from common communication. He should not be isolated.

Prevention of deafness, like prevention of other diseases, is a new thing in medicine. In deafness prevention really began only eleven years ago with the creation of the American Federation of Organizations for the Hard of Hearing. Its work so far has been largely oblique because largely educational.

The complications of hearing defects and their prevalence have stimulated many a doctor to become a specialist in that branch of medicine. Mentioned at last week's conference as topnotchers of their communities were Drs. Wendell C. Phillips, Arthur Baldwin Duel and Edmund Prince Fowler of Manhattan; Dr. Austin Albert Hayden, Chicago; Dr. Max Aaron Goldstein, St. Louis; Dr. Horace Newhart, Minneapolis.

Most laymen working to help the deaf are themselves hard of hearing. They include Starling Winston Childs, Manhattan banker; Adolph Bloch, Manhattan corporation lawyer; Norman Fraser, Chicago, retired; Mr. Justice A. Rives Hall, Montreal; Judge Simon Bass, St. Louis; Mrs. James Flack Norris, Boston; Mrs. James Rudolph Garfield, Cleveland daughter-in-law of the late President, wife of the 1907-09 Secretary of Interior. Also a worker for deaf people, though not herself aurally inefficient, is Mrs. Calvin Coolidge.

A great maker of hearing aids is Western Electric, which commercializes the research of Bell telephone laboratories. Director of Bell laboratories' acoustical research is Dr. Harvey Fletcher, last week re-elected president of the A. F. O. H. H. At their banquet he ran telephone wires from microphones on the speakers' platform to headsets for each of the hard of hearing.

Another great maker of such devices, and a great friend of the hard of hearing, is George Barton French, railroad authority once affiliated with the Export Department of J. P. Morgan & Co. His devices are small and portable. He sells them cheaply, will sell them more cheaply when he makes them in greater quantities. With one of his devices the speaker places the transmitter against any part of his head or throat; ensuing sounds are louder than if he spoke into the transmitter. A deaf person can put the receiver to any part of his skull or spine, and hear perfectly through his bones.

*Until lip-readers complained, silent cinemactors were wont to mouth irrelevancies, vulgarities, even Hollywood obscenities before the camera.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.