The audiphone : a new invention that enables the deaf to hear through the medium of the teeth, and many of the deaf and dumb to hear and learn to speak : invented by Richard S. Rhodes : patented throughout the world : principal European office and Audiphone parlours, 225, Regent Street, London, W.

Date:
[1882?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The audiphone : a new invention that enables the deaf to hear through the medium of the teeth, and many of the deaf and dumb to hear and learn to speak : invented by Richard S. Rhodes : patented throughout the world : principal European office and Audiphone parlours, 225, Regent Street, London, W. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    HISTORICAL. ORIGIN OF THE AUDIPHOME. {From the Chicago Tribune,” August 26, i8'79.) A Device for Removing the Misery of the Deaf—Discovery of an entirely Kew Principle in Acoustics. The ingenuity of American inventors has displayed itself for many years in the patenting of instruments to help the hearing of different people. All these devices are but modi- . ncations of the ear-trumpet. They have all been attempts to remedy, through the ear, a defect existing within it, and many of them have undoubtedly rather worsened than bettered in its sense the constant use of the defective organ ; and the throwing upon it of a greater volume of sound than; it is naturally accustomed to has a tendency to increase the disease which has affected the hearing. An inventor has now come forward, however, who‘ has struck out on a new path ; who has discarded the ear as the means of hearing, and putting on one side all those ear-trumpets, large and small, which are bothersome to carry around, and which really are only available when a speaker talks directly into them, and which are practically useless if listening at a public meeting, theatre, or an opera^ and has utilised the mouth—or, to speak more directly, teeth—as a means of making the deaf hear. It is the apy plication of a long-known principle, but none the less ingenious, and none the less useful for that. The inventor is a Chicagoan—Mr. Richard S. Rhodes. He has been deaf for nearly twenty years. After going through with- the usual routine of ear-trumpets, and all that sort of nonsense, and getting thoroughly disgusted with ; it, he happened one day to hold a watch between his teeth, and noticed that he could distinctly hear its ticking, though