There are few feats of miniaturisation more astonishing than modern private hearing aids, which are so small as to be effectively invisible yet can provide an astonishing level of clarity to speech by carefully amplifying speech which assists the brain’s ability to process it.
Often, a lot of the benefits of hearing aids and even the devices themselves can be forgotten whilst they are in use, only noticed when they need to be removed or examined by an audiologist.
This is to its tremendous credit, but means that to truly appreciate how they help enrich lives we need to take a step back.
Hearing aids as they exist today are highly advanced, carefully designed and adjusted by aural specialists, but the concept is over two centuries old, and in practice has at least three main inventors.
The Lost First Ear Trumpet
Much like how the contact lens and modern corrective glasses began with the looking stone, hearing aids as we recognise them today began with the ear trumpet.
The history of its invention is unclear, and whilst its earliest description could be found in the book Recreations mathématiques by Jean Leurechon, the early bespoke nature of ear trumpets means that there is a real chance that they were invented far sooner than the 17th century.
By the turn of the 18th century, they had started to become more popular, and by the start of the 19th century, they started to be commercially produced by the London-based merchant Frederick C. Rein and his company F.C. Rein And Son.
They work on the same principle a funnel or a trumpet does; the cone concentrates sound energy into the ear and makes sounds louder.
They were initially quite large and heavy, but because they were essentially a metal cone, they could be portable and versatile enough to be fitted into items of clothing, fashion accessories and seats.
Akouphone
The invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell opened a wave of possibilities by inventing the microphone alongside it, as well as amplification and frequency adjustment.
These were taken full advantage of in the invention of the Akouphone by Miller Reese Hutchison in 1898. It used a carbon microphone and was designed to help a childhood friend who had lost her hearing.
It worked, but its original tabletop form was far from ideal. However, within a few years, the Akouphone became the more portable battery-powered Acousticon and quickly became a massive success.
This was, in no small part, thanks to excellent timing and publicity. After the end of the Spanish-American War of 1898, Mr Hutchison travelled to Europe, where members of several ruling families suffered from genetic hearing loss.
One of these, Queen Alexandra of Denmark, was overjoyed by the results to the point that Mr Hutchison became a guest at the coronation ceremony of her husband, the late Queen Victoria’s son King Edward VII.
Whilst still flawed and limited in who it could help, it was seen by medical experts at the time of the 1904 World’s Fair as the best possible option and set the wheels in motion for the advanced hearing aids we have today.
