Science.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 404, 4 February 1904, Page 7

Science.

farther - tests of the aocoußh-jv-fo con invested by Mr Miller Beese S£jg Hutchison were made at the closing, Uight of the New York opera season, when- a'party of five deaf mutes were taken to hearf LaJPille du Begimenl.. k . The iteaistautf superintendent of the institution for the deaf and dumb, who accompanied Jhe group, said that alii of them had; been deaf from childhood, and had never before tried Mr Hutchison's device. 'lt is Heaven,' said one of the deaf mutes, a young woman, with her fingers, as she listened: to Mme. Sembrich's singing, and the comments of the others, made in the sign language, formed an equally,, eloquent testimony to the? merits of the acousticon. ' Cjs

Mr Hutchison is only 28 years of age, and scarcely looks that. He has been working on the acousticon, and an instrument called the massacon, which is a phono electric apparatus for the ear applicable to quite a large percentage of cases of catarrhal deafness, for ten years. Neither of his instruments will be sold except on the prescription of a qualified physician or aurist. A company nas been formed to put the inventions on the market, but it will be a month or bo before the acousticons will be at, the disposal of the public. Mr Hutchison describes this instrument as being to the ear what the eyeglass is to the eye. He says it enables all olasses of deaf persons to hear, except those*-who suffer from impairment of the auditory. nerve. Like eyeglasses, it has to be adjusted to each' individual case, and for this reason there are no fewer than 2800 separate and distinct adjustments, some one of which is very likely to meet almost any existing condition. I personally tested the acousticon, writes the New York correspondent of the London «Daily Telegraph,' bo far as one not deaf could test it. Words whispered into the receiver reached my ear through a sort of ear trumpet with a volume of sound as if spoken through a megaphone. Inversely words shouted into the receiver came out of the ear trumpet in a soft whisper.

EABS. One never hears ranch about ears. It seems a curious thing that this should be so. For the ear is a very prominent factor in the face, quite as important as the nose, or the mouth, or th«s eyes, Were the ear to be absent we should miss it quite as much as we should miss the other features, but, in spite of this fact, little or nothing is heard about the ear. I do not mean to say that ears. were entirely neglected before, Not at all, for our ear doctors have always been perfectly ' competent to fight the many troubles that attack our ears without fear of failure. I mean to say that scientists are beginning to apply theories —with a capital' T'—to our ears, with a view of tracing our characters and such things from them. You will observe, when you pick up ■your novelette, that the heroine invariably has a delicate shell-like ear over which the golden curls are coyly straying. That is what the penny novelist tells you. Now the scientist says the same thing in a very different way. He skys that the particular young woman mentioned above has an ear well formed and compact, of the ' orang ' species, as contrasted to the large and heavj ear of the ' chimpanzee' type. The particular school of ear students who have got on to the orang and the chimpanzee tack are wont to associate criminality with the formation of the ear. Tbey say that men with shell-like or orang ears, and women with the chimpanzee variety are the class from which criminals are mainly drawn. As a consequence of this they add that an expert can pick from a group of men and women all those who are likely to have criminal instincts. There is a very interesting fact about ears that is not generally known. Your ears never stop growing. They Btart when you are a baby, and continue to increase in size until you die. Hence it is that all old people have large ears, while those of the youngar generation are small. Look round the room at any gathering of people, and you may prove the fact for yourself. The expert might even tell your age by the size and shape of your ears. A pretty woman when her first youth is past, could still keep up appearances in all were it not for ear, which soon loses its delicate curves as the thirties are well on their way. There is a heartless wrinkle that will assert itself after a bit, despite all efforts to keep it down, Hence the artistic way of coiling the hair round the ears affected by some ladies has its uses as well as being picturesque. It may be unkind to mention the fact, unkind, that is to say, to those of the charming sex whose years have reached the shady side of thirty, for some people, whose bump of inquisitiveness is too well marked, might look fos this little wrinkle in the hope of finding in it a proof positive of the lamentable fact that the lady has been doing her best to hide for so long. But still the fact, and, for that, matter, the wrinkle,: remains, and will remain. It is well known that very few people can boast of a similar pair of feet; this is applicable j to ears, for if you were to make careful • measurements of those organs you could find many divergencies in shape and sizs that would surprise you a good deal. Heredity, too, finds a firm supporter amongst ears, for in no part of the body are family resemblances so strongly produced as in the ears. Once the ears have got some mark, some characteristic, you will find that mark, or that characteristic, in all succeeding generations unchanged.