GOOD NEWS FOR THE DEAF. Leo Ehrlich's Invention, Which, he Says, Will Perform Wonders.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 72, 18 October 1884, Page 5

GOOD NEWS FOR THE DEAF. Leo Ehrlich's Invention, Which, he Says, Will Perform Wonders.

Leo Eiirlicii, former secretary of the Humane Society, has invented a device which will cause all the deaf people in the land to call him blessed. It consists of a contrivance which can b© located in the handle of a cane, umbrella, parasol, or fan, and which, when placed to the ear of a deaf person, will cause him or her to hear any sound audible to the ear of a person who is not afflicted with deafness. The device which produces these effects is a tube about six inches long placed in the hollow of a Malacca cane. In the tube is a cone-shaped electric coil beginning at a small battery at the lower end of tho tube, and terminating in the bird's bill. The vibration of this coil causes a multiplication of any sound or noise passing into the tube through several slits in the side of the can©. The cane and tube together weigh about six ounces, and the whole outfit looked like an ordinary Malacca walking stick with a silver head. " How did I happen to invent it !" said Mr Ehrlich, in reply to a question. " Well, it was the necessity of my own case. I was so deaf that it interfered with my social and business duties. I had been treated for my | ailment in Paris, Vienna, and in this counj try, and still I grew worse ; so I set about to invent something that would cure me, and the result surprised me. I can now hear as well as you can, and without the use of the cane. It is very simple. It is simply a multiplication of sound by electricity and the projection of a steady current of electricity against the weakened or paralysed nerves and tissues of the ear. There is no degree of deafness in which a man cannot hear with this, even if the ear drum is destroyed ; of course, it won't make a new ear drum, but it will make him hear. It is simply a multiplication table in the shape of sound. Here is one of the features of it. When a man is near-sighted he can get a pair of glasses, and no one takes any notice of it ; but when a man is deaf he must either lug an ear trumpet around with him, much to the amusement of everybody, or hear nothing. This thing he carries in a case or umbrella, and not only uses it without any one suspecting what it is, but hears well and is cured of his deafness. It accomplishes what nothing else has ever done. E. C. Witherspoon of the Cotton Exchange, who has not heard a dog bark for the last twenty-three years, can hear as well as anybody now. He was made deaf by the accidental discharge of a piece of artillery. His friends on 'Change are astonished at the readiness with which he hears now. 1 have been at work at this over a year, and when I began everybody had to yell close to my ear, now I can hear the slightest whisper at a talking distance. I will send one to Mr Edison, who is deaf.— "From the St. Louis Republican."