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Hearing Awareness Day – Patient Information

By H Dominic W Stiles, on 27 February 2018

By Abir Mukherjee @ClinicalLibUCLH

This second post of this series highlights a small selection of reliable patient information resources for hearing loss in general. Once again, these sources either meet the NHS Information Standard or are produced by reputable organisations.

Action on Hearing Loss (formerly the Royal National Institute for Deaf People – RNID) estimates that one in six people in the UK has hearing loss or is deaf, and increasingly people are accessing help to hear better. Their website discusses in clear terms, the different types and causes of hearing loss and deafness, as well as what people can do if they are worried about hearing loss – from seeing a GP to getting hearing aids or a cochlear implant. They also have a very useful glossary for hearing disorders and symptoms. NHS CHOICES also provides a relevant overview of hearing loss including symptoms and treatment options. In line with this year’s World Hearing Day theme of ‘Hear the Future’ they also discuss some simple but common sense ways of reducing the risk of damage to hearing such as:

· not having the television, radio or music on too loud

· using headphones that block out more outside noise, instead of turning up the volume

· wearing ear protection (such as ear defenders) in a noisy environments

· using ear protection at loud concerts and other events where there are high noise levels

· not inserting objects ears – this includes fingers, cotton buds, cotton wool and tissues

· Get a hearing test as soon as possible if worried about hearing loss -the earlier hearing loss is picked up, the earlier something can be done about it.

ENT UK, produced by the Royal College of Surgeons also has easy to understand information on ear anatomy and how the ear works to explain hearing disorders and common causes. Patient Info also has a range of pertinent information on hearing disorders and downloadable leaflets.

“in silence is his body born again” – Muted Voices – Romanian writer Eugen Relgis

By H Dominic W Stiles, on 15 December 2017

In Glasuri in surdină, translated in 1938 as Muted Voices, Romanian writer Eugen Relgis wrote a memoir that in style seems more like a novel.  Our copy is beatifully printed and bound with expressive woodcut engravings by the French artist and anarchist, Louis Moreau and translated by Rose Freeman-Ishill.  Our central character is Miron, who is we might suppose Eugen himself.  He describes the children playing leap-frog:

The child-frog falls and strikes his head against a stone.  He is not hurt but his suffering weeps and cries, naive and exaggerated.  Miron caresses him with one with the remorse of one who has caused an involuntary ill.  “Be silent, Ermil, be silent” – and his hand gently glides over the lump on the other’s forehead- “Be silent, it will pass away… I will give you my little wooden horse…”

Ermil, appeased, dries his tears.  Miron, touched, kisses him upon moist lips.

And, at the moment of the kiss, Miron’s fate is sealed.  Oh ! occult forces, inexorable laws indifferent to all the tenderness, all the beauty of the human heart!  The demons have shattered their joy!  A kiss, a simple childish kiss, an altogether natural kiss of affection…

And evil  spirits have taken possession of Miron! […] the invisible germ of Disease. (p.19)

His description of illness and ‘Disease,’ make it seem like the struggles of a writhing beast –

and the carnivorous animals lodged within the body gnaw and claw and rend. […] The body bends like a bow and the blasphemies of dearth seethe in the skull.  The waves make their weight particularly felt in the ears which are filled with whistlings and where cascades thunder and fall…  A howling like a cataclysmic eruption, the howling of life who would not be annihilated… and the eardrums burst beneath that pressure. (p.23)

It is a powerful and strange writing style. He ends the chapter with poetic prose-
And the child regards the silence, – and the child
breathes the silence – and his life palpitates in
silence, – in silence is his body born again, –
in the umbrageous refuge of silence…

Silence… silence… silence…

A complex and fascinating man, Relgis was born into a Jewish family in Romania in 1895, as Eisig D. Sigler, though he used various spellings of his surname and the name Eugen/Eugene.  He was a part of the Romanian Symbolist movement, and although he trained as an architect he became a writer and publisher.  Politically he was an anarchist, but he also had what now seem quite extreme eugenicist views, saying “Instead of natural selection, man should practice rational selection.”  (see his Wikipedia page)
He died in Uruguay in 1987

The Gallaudet website, in a review of the anthology of deaf writers Angels and outcasts : an anthology of deaf characters in literature (1985), has this interesting comment on Miron:

Relgis’ hero, while not unique, is not really representative of the deaf majority. The deaf Steppenwolf, the lone deaf outsider, is rarely encountered in real life in the United States. In Europe and elsewhere, for historical reasons there exists a sharp cleavage between deaf intellectuals and artists and the deaf man in the street, so that there such outsiders account for a much larger proportion of the deaf population.

The book, and Relgis, are both worthy of closer inspection.

Relgis, Eugen, Muted Voices, New Jersey (1938)

http://militants-anarchistes.info/spip.php?article5046&lang=fr

“No one can conceive the agony, the unutterable sorrow I was plunged into” – Charles H. Hassall, ‘herbalist’

By H Dominic W Stiles, on 8 December 2017

The herbalist ‘doctor’, Charles H. Hassall F.S.Sc. was born in Stoke in 1848, and in his youth he lived with his grandfather, who was himself a herbalist.  As a boy Charles lost both his sight to some inflammation, and his hearing in his left ear, and partly lost hearing in his right ear.  The interview in The British Deaf-Mute does not tell us if it was known exactly what caused that, but at any rate it was not permanent and he eventually regained hearing in his right ear, and his vision.

Abraham quotes a pamphlet by Hassall on ‘Care of the Eyes’ where he explains his loss of sight:

A physician was consulted who professed to know all about it and prescribed accordingly, with the result that soon the inflammation rapidly spread to the other eye, still he continued to see and proscribe until I was completely dark-blind as it is called.  He then very coolly gave up the case as hopeless, so I was to be blind through all my earthly life for all he seemed to know or care.  No one can conceive the agony, the unutterable sorrow I was plunged into – an earnest, energetic mind just beginning to enquire and expand suddenly checked and held back in chains of darkness.

[…] I then consulted another Doctor.  This gentleman had weak and sore eyes and felt for me; he soon opened the closed pupils so that I could see like the man whose eyes Jesus opened and said that he could “see men as trees walking.” (p.188-9)

Abraham tells us that some twenty-seven or twenty-eight years earlier, Hassall “had the rare and happy experience of being able to restore the speech of a young girl, with a a mixture of oils and various other ingredients.

He went to work for a Dr. Garner in Staffordshire, but to the disappointment of the doctor, Hassall was determined to follow the herbalist path rather than what he termed the allopathic (p.189).  ‘”Well Hassall,” said the Doctor after one of his argumentative conversations, “seeing that you are determined to make a name as a herbalist I would advise you to get a case or two and demonstrate your theories.’

Abraham gives him the title of ‘doctor’ and says Hassall ‘had obtained many diplomas’ including The General Council of Safe Medicine Limited (Incorporated), London; The National Association of Herbalists of Great Britain; The Society of United Medical Herbalists of Great Britain; The British School of Eclectic Medicine; The British Association of Eclectics and Medical Botanists; The Medical Herbalist Defence Union Limited; The International Association of Medical Herbalists (p.189).  One of these must be The National Institute of Medical Herbalists and it would be interesting to see if there are any archival records of him.  The proliferation of diplomas and claim to use the title ‘doctor’ smacks of a desperation for legitimacy, but today we might term him a quack.

He moved to Farnworth, Bolton, in 1881, which is probably where Earnest Abraham met him, when Abraham was a missioner there.  He expanded his premises from 78 Peel Street to include 76 and 80.  By 1911 he called himself a ‘Pharmacy Proprietor’ on the census, rather than ‘herbalist.  Hassall died in Bolton in 1923.

1891 Census – Class: RG12; Piece: 3093; Folio: 88; Page: 25; GSU roll: 6098203

1911 Census -Class: RG14; Piece: 23256

E.J.D.A. [Ernest Abraham], Charles H. Hassall, The British Deaf Mute, 1895-6, Volume 5 p.188-9

[I contemplated whether or not I should write about Hassall, but as Ernest Abraham interviewed for The British Deaf-Mute I think we can cover him, and though his hearing loss was partial he is an interesting example of non-standard 19th century medicine.]

Earnest Elmo Calkins, Deaf Pioneer of Modern Advertising

By H Dominic W Stiles, on 24 November 2017

Calkins signatureCHEarnest Elmo Calkins (1868-1964) was a pioneer of modern advertising.  Born in

In Design Observer, Steven Heller says of him, that he is “recognized as the founder of “styling the goods,” otherwise known as “consumer engineering” or even better known as “forced obsolescence”—he is considered in the pantheon of twentieth century Modernists.”

Calkins wrote a volume of memoirs, “Louder Please,” in 1924, & then in 1946 produced an extended version, “and hearing not-“; Annals of an Adman.  Writing in the third person, here as ‘the Boy,’ he describes here his loss of hearing in a chapter that appears in both volumes, ‘The ears begin to close’ :

nothing stands out with any sharpness, either teachers or lessons.  A sort of mist seems to veil the next three or four years.

The reason for the mist was that the Boy was growing deafer.  School seemed more futile the less he heard of it.  The world-old conflict between heredity and environment was henceforth to be influenced by a new element whose effect could not be foreseen.  Deafness introduced complications that required new adjustments, like deuces wild in a poker game.  The cause, it seems, was measles experienced at the age of six, at length bearing its evil fruit, but the predisposition was probably a part of his inheritance.  He was at least ten years old before his condition was realized, even by himself.  His fits of abstraction and oblivion were laid to inattention by the higher powers, both at home and abroad. (and hearing not, p.p.67-8)

He went on eventiually to college, and got good marks in mathematics, but otherwise, “For four years he sat in various classrooms, hearing almost nothing, content or at least resigned to make out a passable performance” (p.100).  He got into advertising aged 23, when he won a competition for an advertisement for a Bissell carpet sweeper.  Later on his advertising company was behind ‘Lucky Jim’ of the breakfast cereal Force, and he introduced modern art into American advertising in the 1920s.

CalkinsIn the chapter, ‘Social life of a deaf man,’ Calkins describes how so many famous people he met he was “unable to use, other than to satisfy my curiosity as to how they looked.”   He relied on his wife in many of these situations (p.180).  He says that “Deafness was the ever present influence.  It made or marred my attempts to earn a living, it selected my friends for me, and determined what I was to enjoy of social life, what my amusements were to be.” (p.181)

“A partially deaf man is like Aesop’s bat, neither animal nor bird, but having the disabilities of both, belonging neither to the hearing world  nor that of the totally deaf.” (p.188)

“Lip reading is like handwriting in that it is sometimes as clear as print and again as illegible as Horace Greeley‘s famous chirography.” (p.189)  He had lessons in lip reading with Edward B. Nitchie, who was deaf and whose books we have.

We have the two volumes of memoir mentioned above.  One is signed by Calkins, dedicated to Madeleine de Soyres.  They are well worth investigating, and he seems to me an engaging writer.

Calkins, Earnest Elmo, “Louder Please,” 1924

Calkins, Earnest Elmo, “and hearing not-“; Annals of an Adman.  New York, 1946

“Deafness, like gutta serena, is sometimes produced by inordinate seminal discharges” Antoine Saissy 1756-1822

By H Dominic W Stiles, on 22 September 2017

Saissy FrenchBorn on the 2nd of February 1756, in Mougins, near Grasse in Provence, Jean Antoine Saissy had originally intended to become a planter, but coming across some medical books, he determined on a medical career, travelling to Paris to study (Montain, p.8ff).  He was then twenty two years old, with only a village education, combined with his own book-learning (ibid.p.9).  From 1777 to 1782 he studied under various famous professors, including Chopart and Pelletan.  He went on to serve as a physician and surgeon major with the Compagnie royale d’Afrique on the Barbary coast.  He attended to a child of the ‘Dey of Constantinople’ (possibly an error for Bey of Constantin?), who wanted him to stay.  Saissy however, returned to France, and in 1789 (the English version says 1798 which seems to be an error) defended his thesis on inoculation for small pox before the ‘Chirugical College of Lyons,’ and became a Doctor of Medicine with the University of Valence.  He married the daughter of M. Thenance, a doctor who had invented some obstetric forceps, and devoted himself to that area of medicine for a time.  In 1810 he wrote an essay on Croup, one of the first to do so.

He seems to have been a polymath, in 1811 presenting at the Institut de France a ‘memoir’ on the extraction of light by the condensation of gas.  Quite what that means I am not sure.  He also worked on a study of hibernation, with dormice and marmots (ibid p.12 -13).

It was not until the last twelve years of his life that he devoted himself to diseases of the ear.  Weir and Mudry tell us that Saissy was “the first person to propose introducing a piece of catgut into an artificial perforation of the tympanic membrane to avoid its closure.”

In his introduction to deafness, he repeats this curious form of treatment;

A Bavarian bath-keeper, mentioned by Sckinkius,* devised a singular method of curing deafness.  He plunged the patient into a warm bath, to produce turgescence in the little veins which run behind the ear.  When these were sufficiently apparent he opened them with the point of a lancet and drew a considerable quantity of blood, to the great relief of the patients on whom he practised the evacuation.  This remedy may have some success in cases of sanguineous plethora of the organ of hearing. (p.24-5)

As his 4th of 15 listed causes of deafness, Saissy says

Deafness, like gutta serena, is sometimes produced by inordinate seminal discharges.  Sylvaticus cites a remarkable instance of deafness supervening upon excessive indulgence in venereal pleasures. (p.21)

In other words, it makes you deaf as well as blind!  I suppose that he is not thinking of veneral disease, which can have those effects.

Saissy died on the 5th of March, 1822.  He seems to have been rather forgotten but is deserving of better treatment than I have space or time to give him here.

head section LaissyAbove, the only illustration in his book, a section of the head showing it is a vertical section.

As an addendum, it is interesting to note the protection of copyright notice given by the U.S.A. in the front of the English translation from Maryland.

US copyright*Schenkius, a Swiss doctor (1530-98)

Saissy, J.A., Essai sur les maladies de l’oreille interne.  Paris, (1827) [first published in a briefer essay in 1819]

Saissy, Antoine, An Essay on the Diseases of the Internal Ear.  Baltimore, (translated, 1829)

Montain, Biographic Notice, in An Essay on the Diseases of the Internal Ear, p.9-15. 

Mudry, Albert.  The tympanostomy tube: An ingenious invention of the mid 19th century.  International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology Volume 77, Issue 2, February 2013, p. 153-157

Weir, Neil, & Mudry, Albert.  Otorhinolaryngology, An Illustrated History, 2013.

 

Portraying a Deaf female character – “Not in the Calendar” by Margaret Kennedy

By H Dominic W Stiles, on 24 March 2017

Margaret Kennedy (1896-1967) is today best remembered for her 1924 novel, The Constant Nymph.  Her daughter,  Julia Birley, was a novelist, as is her granddaughter, Serena Mackesy.  You can read more about her on Wikipedia and in the Dictionary of National Biography.

In 1964 she published what was to be her final novel, Not in the Calendar.  It seems to be the only one of her novels not to have been reprinted, but it is nevertheless of interest as it centres around the relationship between a Deaf girl call Winsome, later re-named as Wyn, who is the daughter of a kennel man, and one of the daughters of her her father’s wealthy employers, Carrie Knevett.  As far as I could see (without doing major research) Margaret Kennedy did not have any particular connection with deaf people, but if you know otherwise please comment.  In a note at the beginning of the book, she tells us that

I could not have ventured to write this book without the advice and criticism of Miss Edith Whetnall and of Dr Pierre Gorman, Librarian to the Royal National Institute for the Deaf.  I wish to thank them for their great kindness and for the trouble which they took to help me.

5493900361_bcd4cd4256_zImage Smithsonian Institution @ Flickr Commons

Deborah Kent says,

Not in the Calendar is one of those utterly remarkable novels that, for some unaccountable reason, are overlooked and forgotten by critics and the reading public alike.  Published in 1964, just before the women’s movement gained momentum, it is in its quiet way a rallying cry for feminism.  Among the women in Kennedy’s gallery of minor characters are childish, pampered Lallie; Ida the maid, with dreams of rising to a higher station in life; and Daphne, with her unsettling habit of slipping long confessional letters beneath the doors of houseguests. All of them are drawn with affection and understanding, and none relies upon men in her quest for fulfillment. (Kent, p.103)
[…]
In the novels and plays I have examined, Wyn Harper is one of the few disabled women whose life combines professional achievements and the satisfaction of deep and enduring friendship. Furthermore, she is almost alone in her resolution of the conflict between self-acceptance and assimilation into the world of non-disabled people-a conflict few writers even acknowledge. (ibid p.105)

In his 1987 article, Douglas Biklen says,

Kennedy’s Not in the Calendar (1964) reveals the constant negotiations over identity required of people with disabilities and of their allies.  Can Win achieve the status of artist, with her deafness relegated to being a single quality and not an all-defining characteristic?  Can Carrie educate deaf children without being a lady bountiful?  Which social definition of disability will social policy adopt: pity, charity and dependence or independence and self determination?  Or, […] in the modern professionalized service oriented society, is the dominant social policy choice between medicalized dependence and self determination? (Biklen, p.531)

I cannot say this is the sort of novel that would excite me, but it may well be of interest to anyone studying Deaf people in literature, and is perhaps worthy of further examination.

Biklen, Douglas , The culture of policy disability images and their analogues in public policy.  Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, March 1987 p. 515–35 DOI: 10.1111/j.1541-0072.1987.tb00727.x

Biklen, D., Schooling Without Labels. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/9514

Heshusius, Lous, The Arts, Science, and the Study of Exceptionality.  Exceptional Children, Vol. 55, No. I, p. 60-65 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/001440298805500107

Kent, Deborah, In Search of a Heroine: Images of Women with Disabilities in Fiction and Drama.  In Fine, M. A. A.. Women with Disabilities. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. 

McQuilland, Louis J., The creator of “The Constant Nymph.”  The Bookman, (Oct 1925): p. 4-6

Powell, Violet, ‘Kennedy, Margaret [married name Margaret Davies, Lady Davies] (1896–1967)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/34281, accessed 24 March 2017]

Richardson, Joanna, The Constant Novelist A Study of Margaret Kennedy (1896-1967) Violet Powell (Book Review).  The Spectator, London 251.8086 (Jul 2, 1983): 25

On Good Reads

Alfred Binet, French psychologist, versus Giulio Ferrerí, Italian oralist, 1910

By H Dominic W Stiles, on 24 February 2017

Giulio Ferreri (1860 or 1862-1942)* was an oralist teacher of the deaf who was Rector of the Royal National Institution, Milan, for many years.  He travelled fairly widely it seems, visiting America, where he studied the educational methods, writing a monograph in 1903 that was translated for the Volta Bureau in 1908 as The American Institutions for the Education of the Deaf.  According to the scribbled note in the front of that book, he met Selwyn Oxley on two occasions, in Milan in 1924**, and at the Teacher Conference in London in 1925.

Not long after the appearance of Ferreri’s American publication, the French psychologist Alfred Binet and his colleague Théodore Simon, who together created the first IQ test, wrote an article in l’Année psychologique reprinted and translated later in The American Annals of the Deaf, ‘An Investigation Concerning the Value of the Oral Method.’  They found that congenitally deaf people who were considered to be oral successes, were unable to communicate effectively orally:

when one is a bit of a psychologist, one feels curious to know how an art so delicate as that of speech can be taught to unfortunate beings who are totally deaf.  Is it possible that speech, with its delicate shades of intonation which we acquire through the ear, can be learned by individuals who have never heard?  Is it possible?  Perhaps it will be thought that no one has the right to declare anything impossible; but this is one of those things which require a very strong proof to be accepted. (p.35)
[…]
we refrain from concluding that the oral method is a total failure. We do not like such positive assertions; the truth has more delicate shades of distinction. If the oral method really presented no sort of advantage whatever, it would not have held its ground in our schools for thirty years. But we believe that its practical value has been overestimated. It seems to us to be a sort of pedagogy de luxe, which produces moral effects rather than useful and tangible results. It does not enable deaf-mutes to get situations; it does not permit them to enter into relations with strangers; it does not allow them even a consecutive conversation with their relatives; and deaf-mutes who have not learned to speak earn their living just as easily as those who have acquired this semblance of speech. That is the observation which we made again and again, and with a persistency which seemed to us very eloquent. (p.44)

Ferreri was not impressed, responding with what Moores (1997) points out as a very personal attack:

Alfred Binet and his fellow helper, Dr. Simon, have made an investigation as to the value of the oral method, and have published a report of it in their well-known review, l’Année psychologique.  In the minds of the authors the results of their investigations must have appeared very important, but to educators of the deaf, as well as to every conscientious scientist, it is a very poor affair.  But in that case, it may be asked, is it worthwhile to take this study into serious consideration?  It is; because one must apply to the crime of Alfred Binet and Co. the theory of Licurgus, who taught that one should judge a misdeed not in itself but in its consequences. And. in view of the wide circulation and the merits of l’Année psychologique, the mistakes made by the Paris psychologists in judging of the oral method may be disastrous in their consequences upon the opinions of learned men. (p.46)
[…]
In regard to the capacity of criticism, which Mr. Binet denies to the educators of the deaf, we can only reply: Inform yourself of what has been written and discussed concerning the methods of teaching and the means of their application during the past thirty years, and you will make a discovery, viz., that the teachers of the deaf understand very well the deficiencies of their work, and that their knowledge and their desires have always found an obstacle in that economic question which, if it is explicable in politicians and public authorities, is shameful in scientists and takes away all value from their investigations. And this is exactly what has happened to the investigations of Binet and Co. (p.48)

From disparate sources, including The American Annals of the Deaf, I have pieced together something of Ferreri’s life.  He became an ‘instructor’ to the deaf in 1879.  Depending on when he was born then – and one Italian page says 1862 rather than 1860 – he would have been between 16 and 19.  In 1886 he was appointed Vice Director of the Royal Pendola Institute in Siena, and in 1892 he became editor of L’Educazione dei Sordomuti.  The American Annals of the Deaf calls him “one of the most voluminous as well as one of the ablest writers on the education of the deaf in Italy” (1901).  They add a note, in the brief notice of of the Catalogo Cronologico degli Scritti del Prof. Giulio Ferreri sull’ Educazione dei Sordomuti, (Siena, 1901), that as his future address is “Corso Castelfidardo 9, Turin, we infer that he is no longer connected with the Siena Institution, but we hope he is not permanently removed from the profession.”  It seems then that visited England and America in 1901/2, presumably on leave from Siena, for in January 1902 he was at 1760 Q Street, Washington, when his article ‘Another word about the battle of methods’ appeared in The American Annals of the Deaf, (Vol. 47, p.30-44) before moving on to spend time in Palermo and Rome.  In 1908 he was appointed to head the newly united teaching college and school in Milan.

Despite his ardent oralism, it seems there were dissenting voices in Italy.  The 1904 World’s Congress of the Deaf in St. Louis, Missouri, had two short letters from Italian teachers read out, by G. Gioda of the Turin Society of Deaf Mutes and  Francesco Guerra of Naples.  The former said “For the exclusive use of the oral method, preferred by some teachers, the deaf have no use, but by the manual method an individual may receive a complete education” (Proceedings of the World’s Congress of the Deaf, 1904, p.131), while the latter said,

If you, dear comrades, have at heart the sorrowful lot in which thousands and thousands of unhappy deaf people live, especially the deaf of this fair Italy, whose lot is most hard, sad and miserable, vote an order of the day in favor of the combined system and in condemnation of the oralist imposters and charlatans who have wronged and exploited us long enough.  […] I pray that the International Congress of the Deaf at St. Louis may signalize , if not our complete victory, at least an important step in our progress, the prelude and beginning of our approaching emancipation.  In the glorious and beneficent name of De l’Epee I greet you fraternally, crying: Down with the imposters; down with the oralist charlatans; down with the exploiters!  Long live De l’Epee; long live the honored Gallaudet, long live the Combined system! (ibid. p.130)

Unfortunately for them, it seems that the state stuck with Ferreri and his pure oralism. In 1907 he was at the International Congress on the Education of the Deaf in Edinburgh, where he presented this paper The Present State of the Education of the Deaf in Italy (Proceedings of the International Congress on the Education of the Deaf in Edinburgh, 1907, p.41-6).   In 1925 he attended the Sixth International Conference on the Education of the Deaf, held in Margate, presenting a paper on ‘National Control of the Education of the Deaf and Dumb’ (International Conference on the Education of the Deaf, 1925, p.65-69).  Later in the conference, he said

I am the oldest teacher, and I do not think that I should have come here.  In my opinion the old teachers must be tired.  They have nothing more to say, nothing more to teach, and it is necessary to have a young teacher.  In the hands of the young teacher lies the future. (ibid, p.210)

I think that Ferreri seems to be forgotten as an international figure, unless someone can add some additional sources of information.  The quotation from Guerra above is very interesting, and his choice of words, ‘deaf emancipation,’ seems to foreshadow the deaf liberation movement of the 1960s to 1980s.  Someone might like to research this area further.
Ferreri

The above signed photograph is inserted into the front of Oxley’s copy of the book.

He was made an honorary doctor by Gallaudet College at the same time as Selwyn Oxley.

The American Annals of the Deaf, 1901, Vol. 46, p.544

Translated by the author from l’Educazione dei Sordormuti for October 1909. Ferreri, G. 1910. Mistaken investigations concerning the value of the oral method. American Annals of the Deaf, 55(1), 34-38 [Reprinted in American Annals of the Deaf, Volume 142, Number 3, July 1997, pp. 46-48]

Alfred Binet, Théodore Simon American Annals of the Deaf, Volume 142, Number 3, July 1997, pp. 35-45

Moores, Donald F., American Annals of the Deaf, Volume 142, Number 3, July 1997, pp. xvi-xx

*https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5dgzAQAAIAAJ&q=%22giulio+ferreri%22&dq=%22giulio+ferreri%22&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y

**The writing might suggest 1914 but this seems wrong

I have not at present any information on Ferreri’s personal life – if I have we will update this.  He is I think the same as this Professor Giulio Ferreri who married an American lady, Ellen Charlotte Alexander, in London in 1901, but I understand that Ferreri is a common name in Italy, being the name for a ‘farrier’ – smith, so it is possible that is another Ferreri also from Milan.  My Italian colleague has searched for him in vain on the web.

EDITED with additional information on 27th & 28th Feb 2017

The early NID Technical Department, Dennis B. Fry and Péter B. Dénes of UCL

By H Dominic W Stiles, on 23 December 2016

UCL has had an association with the RNID/Action on Hearing Loss Library since the early 1990s when the library moved into the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital alongside the then Institute of Laryngology Library.  However there is a much older association between UCL and what was then the NID.

Giant hearing Aid War time developments in electronics ushered in an era when mass hearing aids would be small enough to be convenient to carry around, and cheap enough for the state to introduce the Medresco hearing aid supplied by the new NHS from 1948.  The previous year the transistor had been unveiled by Bell labs in the US, an invention that would change the world.

For many years the NID had been concerned over the quality of hearing aids and they way they were marketed to the public.  They worked with manufacturers and suppliers to create an agreement whereby the supplier made no claims about curing deafness, as had often been the case with quack sellers, and broadly to not bully clients into buying unwanted devices.  They also created an approved list of suppliers who signed up to the agreement.  This was a slightly tortuous process, and for those interested a visit to the library to read NID minutes would be essential.  The list is attached here: NID approved list

Anechoic ChamberIn 1947 The NID set up a technical department, at the behest of the Medical Committee (Annual Report, 1947 p.9).  At the time they were in 105 Gower Street, and did not have facilities, so initially UCL helped out, and Dennis Butler Fry (1907-84) led the efforts to establish testing to show the ‘technical characteristics and qualities of the various hearing aids’ which were available, and then publish this scientific information to the public (Denes & Fry p.304).

Fry was born on the 3rd of November, 1907, in Stockbridge, Hampshire, son of Fred Cornelius Fry and Jane Ann Butler.

After five years of teaching French, first at Tewkesbury Grammar School and then at Kilburn Grammar School, in 1934 he was appointed Assistant Lecturer in Phonetics at University College London, where he also became Superintendent of the Phonetics Laboratory in 1937.  In 1938 he was promoted to Lecturer in Experimental Phonetics. In 1948, the year after the award of his Ph.D. degree, he became Reader in Experimental Phonetics.  From 1958 until his retirement in 1975, he was Professor of Experimental Phonetics, the first one to hold the title in Britain. (Obituary for Dennis Butler Fry, Arthur S. Abramson

The 1947 annual report records that with the co-operation of Sir David Pye, UCL provost and mechanical engineer who worked on jet engines during the war, they were setting up a special sound-proof room, and that technical staff would be trained at the college, all under the supervision of Fry.  Fry had served in the RAF during the war, at the Acoustics Research Laboratory, Central Medical Establishment, at Kelvin House, 24-32 Cleveland Street, London.  Together with his colleague Péter B. Dénes (1920-96), a Hungarian phonetician who became a British citizen, but spent much of his later working life in the USA.  The books of Fry and Dénes (usually written Denes) on phonetics are still in use today.  Fry founded the journal Speech and Language in 1958. He wrote two books with Edith Whetnall (they are pictured together below), The Deaf Child, and Learning to Hear.

Denes had left Hungary in the 1930s and studied first at Manchester, before moving to UCL where he worked with Fry.  In 1961 he went to the USA on the Queen Mary to work at the Bell Labs (1996 obituary, see link below).  In his obituary, Michael Noll says,

Although Hungarian by birth, Peter was very much British by citizenship and personality. His knowledge of European history and views on events in America led to many lively discussions with his many friends and colleagues. Peter chose to remain a subject of the Queen of England, but he also chose to live in the United States.

The room in the basement of 105 was eventually fitted out for technical testing, along with the anechoic chamber.  In those days the road traffic would not have been as bad as now, and I suspect it would not have been possible to use it today, because of vibrations.  The first technician seems to have been Mr W.J. Markwick, who is mentioned in the 1950 annual report (p.33).  The Technical department became one of the most important areas for the NID in the following decade.

I am sure this would be an interesting area for research.  Denes and Fry were both interesting people who made significant contributions to speech and language research.

Fry Whetnall

Denes, P. and Fry, D.B. An Introduction to the NID Technical Research Laboratory

NID Annual Reports

Abramson, Arthur S. Obituary for Dennis Butler Fry. Speech Communication Volume 3, Issue 2, August 1984, Pages 167-168

http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/fry-obit.htm

Noll, Michael, Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 100, No. 4, Pt. 1, October 1996, p.1916 http://asa.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1121/1.417840

Acoustic instrument makers in the Strand, acoustic ‘throne’ myths, & Frederick Charles Rein & Son

By H Dominic W Stiles, on 11 November 2016

Forgive the long nature of this blog post – I considered dividing it into three as it is the length of an essay, but in the end have left it as one, divided into three sections.

THE REIN FAMILY BUSINESS

Frederick Charles Rein was born in Leipzig, Saxony around 1812/13, a son of Frederick Charles Rein, who was described as a merchant on his son’s marriage record.  1813 was a momentous time in Saxony, which was the scene that October of the Battle of the Nations.  Wagner was born in the city the same year.  At some time around 1834/5 Rein moved to England, where he set up as an instrument maker.  His naturalization papers in June 1855 (to be found on the National Archive*) say that he had been resident for over twenty years (but we may suppose less than twenty-one as otherwise he would have made that clear).  Whether he undertook an apprenticeship as an instrument maker in Saxony or in London would be interesting to know.  In December 1838, he was married in Whitechapel to Susanna(h) Payne of Wendover, whose father was a farmer or agricultural labourer (depending on the year of the census).  At that date Rein was living in Gerrard Street, Soho, and described his job as merely ‘Instrument maker’.  By 1851 Rein was an exhibitor and medallist at the Great Exhibition. In addition to the acoustic instruments – ear trumpets and variations on that theme – Rein also made a “Continual stream enema reservoir” and “several kinds of aperitive vases and enemas”.  Perhaps these items share properties with the acoustic instruments. He also made ‘lactatory’ devices – breast pumps. These were advertised in contemporary newspapers, accessible via online databases.

Acoustic chairsBerger’s The Hearing Aid: its Operation and Development (1970, p.7), says Rein began making non-electric hearing aids in London no later than 1800, a claim repeated by others in an internet meme, presumably on his authority.  Max Goldstein’s book Problems of the Deaf (1933) has a picture of Rein’s ‘acoustic chair’ saying it was made in 1830. It is not called a ‘throne’.  Our copy was donated to the library by Leslie V. K.-Rein in 1933 – of whom more anon. The claim is also usually repeated, without original evidence, that the ‘throne’ was made for King João VI of Portugal and Brazil (John VI in English) who was, we are told, deaf, or at least suffered from increasing hearing loss as he aged, and who died in 1826.  Goldstein makes no mention of that. I cannot find any contemporary evidence in English that the king was deaf.  There are many pages on the web that repeat the story, without solid proof. All the evidence I have found seems to come back to Berger.**  It is unlikely that Rein made this ‘throne’ for João, unless Rein’s ‘merchant’ father was in fact an acoustic instrument maker who came to England. The chair was undoubtedly made by Rein, but later in the century, as a show piece.  Goldstein has a picture of a speaking tube that he says was dated 1805 by ‘Rein & Son’, but this must be a misreading of the date which is most likely 1855 or 1865 by which time his son, Frederick Charles junior was working with him, as we can see from the name of the business in advertisements.

If Rein took over an existing business in the Strand, where the earliest record I can find of him is at 340 in 1841 on his son’s birth certificate for 22nd November, it may have been that of A.F. Hemming, an ‘elastical surgical instrument maker,’ who was at that address according to an advert in Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (Sunday 1st November, 1840).

Rein’s 1843 advertisement in The Age (Sunday, March 5th 1843, p.1; Issue 62) says that he was an “INVENTER [sic] and MAKER of the NEW ACOUSTIC INSTRUMENTS to H.R.H. the DUKE of SUSSEX, 340, STRAND, (nearly opposite Somerset House)”.   (The Strand has been renumbered since Kinsgsway was built.)   The Duke was Queen Victoria’s uncle. Unfortunately the Duke died a few weeks after this advertisement appeared. Rein quotes in full an encomium from Justice Patteson of 33, Bedford Square, dated June 21st, 1841, which means he must have been making and selling acoustic instruments by that date.  I have however failed to find him in the June 1841 census, which is notorious for its poor transcription.  In 1842, he was mentioned as an aurist, among other tradesman in the Strand, having a gas light, lit with the letters ‘P.W.’ to celebrate the christening of the Prince of Wales.

If there was a Rein making hearing devices before circa 1835 when Frederick came to London, I cannot find any reference to that.  Why advertise making a device for a Royal Duke, rather than a king? If anyone can find evidence for any Rein in any acoustic related business in London before this, perhaps by referring to trade directories or rate books, please point this out in the space for comments.

One witness to Rein’s marriage was a James Aloys Muhlhauser.  At first I could not find any record of him in the ancestry.co.uk databases, and I wondered if he left England before 1841.  However I have since found a marriage record for him with Sophia Cronin, a widow, on 11/12/1837 at Saint Martin In The Fields.  There is one possible Muhlhauser in the newspapers, who was one of the Germans who their fellow countryman J.H. Garnier appealed to the Lord Mayor on behalf of in 1836.  They had moved to Switzerland and then were expelled as being rather too liberal in their political views, even though not directly involved in politics (see The Morning Post, Wednesday, August 24, 1836; Issue 20503).  That Muhlhauser was living in Goodman’s Fields.  This is a speculation – if it is the same Muhlhauser, is it possible that Rein knew him before he came to England – perhaps having resided in Switzerland as well?  Note that Rein’s wife Susannah was resident in Wentworth Street, Aldgate, and they were married at St. Mary’s Whitechapel, which is not far from there. It would be interesting to see if the Rein family appears in any German archives.

The Victorian church of St. John the Baptist, Enderby, has part of the Rein pulpit speaking system surviving, according to Pevsner.  It sounds like the device that Rein patented in 1867 in The GazetteBy the 1880s the shop was described as a Paradise for the Deaf (The Era, Saturday, July 9, 1887; Issue 2546).  Rein’s work was clearly well regarded by otologists.  In The Diseases of the Ear, their Nature, Diagnosis and Treatment (1868, p.417), Joseph Toynbee says, “The most useful of this class of instruments are the small cornets made by Mr. Rein, which are connected by a spring passing over the head, that serves to hold them in the ears”, while William Wilde in Practical Observations on Aural Surgery and the Nature and Treatment of Diseases of the Ear (1853, p.435) says, “Mr. Rein, an instrument-maker in the Strand, London, has given much attention to the subject, and made many improvements therein.”

SOME OTHER ACOUSTIC DEVICE BUSINESSES IN THE STRAND IN THE 1830/40s

Aurist/surgeon John Harrison Curtis, regarded by Toynbee as a quack, was active through the early years of the century, and founder of the Royal Dispensary for the Diseases of the Ear, seems to have been influential in the design of acoustic instruments.  He discusses the types available and some he designed in A Treatise on the Physiology and Pathology of the Ear (1817).  The adjacent picture illustrates some of these.  Curtis designed an acoustic chair in the early years of the centuryAcoustic instruments – see in the picture above to the right of the later Rein chair.  The relevant section from the 5th edition of his book is here – A Treatise on the Ear 5th edition. According to the sixth edition of that book (1836, p.181), Curtis had his devices made by J. & S. Maw, of 11 Aldersgate Street.***

It appears that this chair inspired Rein to make his, though they are different in design.  Curtis tells us that a model of his chair was on display in the National Gallery of Practical Science, Adelaide Street, Lowther Arcade which was in the Strand, along with his various hearing trumpets and artificial ears, and ‘a metal cast of the Internal Ear’ (A Treatise on the Physiology and Pathology of the Ear 6th edition, 1836).  It seems likely that this display was influential on Rein and the other acoustic instrument makers in the Strand area.

Other acoustic instrument makers (if that is not too specific a term for people who sold a variety of things, including ‘medical’ devices) of the late 1830s and 1840s, predating Rein, include the aurist William Wright, whose “Gong Metal Ear Trumpets” were manufactured and sold by L.H. Baugh at 199 The Strand, from at least 1832 to 1835. He wrote in On the Varieties of Deafness and Diseases of the Ear (1829, p.276), “the adaptation of an ivory ear-piece to a small bugle-horn, which I have directed to be made, appears to answer the purpose better than any other, and I believe the person to whom I gave the pattern, makes and sells a great number of them”.

To Persons Afflicted with Deafness. – L.H. Baugh, successor to S. Shepherd, 199, Strand, London, continues to manufacture the celebrated GONG METAL EAR TRUMPETS, and other ACOUSTIC INSTRUMENTS, so much approved of by the most eminent Surgeon-Aurists.  These Instruments are universally admitted to be the most efficacious ever invented for the assistance of persons afflicted with deafness.  The Trumpet is a handsome instrument, elegantly formed and finished, and may be carried in the pocket without the slightest inconvenience.  Also the newly invented Ear Cap, which may be worn under a lady’s cap or bonnet without being perceived (The Morning Post, Monday, February 13, 1832; pg. [1]; Issue 19088).

Alfonso William Webster, who patented his otaphone in 1836 and was advertising it in the papers within weeks, available from 102 New Bond Street, then premises at 12 Chapel Street, Bedford Row, Holborn (The Standard, Thursday, April 07, 1836; pg. [1]; Issue 2781).  He wrote A new and familiar treatise on the structure of the ear, and on deafness (1836) which we unfortunately do not have.  He also wrote On the Principles of Sound; their application in the construction of public buildings, particularly to the New Houses of Parliament, etc (1840) , which is held in UCL Special Collections.  The last date I can see for the ‘otophone’ [sic] being advertised is The Morning Chronicle, Wednesday, January 9, 1839; Issue 21573.  It is possible this Alphonsus Webster was married to a lady called Ann and had at least one daughter, Eliza, born 1815, and a son Septimus, born 1830 (see the IGI).  I cannot find Webster in the 1841 census. Perhaps he died around that time, which may explain why he no longer advertised.

S. & B. Solomons of Albemarle Street, “Opticians and Aurists to their Majesties the King and Queen of Hanover” – they add, “No connexion [sic] with persons of the same name” – and, a person of the same name, Mr E. Solomons of 36 Old Bond Street, “Optician, Patentee of the Amber Spectacles,” who “respectfully informs the public that he has effected a vast improvement in VOICE CONDUCTORS, for aiding and permanently relieving all CASES of DEAFNESS.  They are acknowledged to be far superior to any hitherto offered, do not require to be held, and are formed on a scale so small as to be scarcely visible.” etc… (The Age, Sunday Oct 4th, 1838 p.320).  Next to this advertisement is one for Dr James Scott‘s establishment at 369 The Strand, under his ‘superintendent’ William B. Pine, offering the Soniferon, a sort of table based ear trumpet that “stands on a pillar like a lamp,” and Dr Scott’s Ear Cornets, “invaluable to those individuals whose whose deafness does not require so powerful an instrument as large as Soniferon.”  In 1836 Scott was not at that address it seems, from an advert in 1836, but that they were being manufactured under Scott’s supervision by Savory and Co., ‘chemists and medical instrument makers’ (Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, Sunday, October 30, 1836).  That changed to ‘Scott and Co.’ in March 1837, or ‘Scott, Savory and Co.’ in some adverts, and not long after they must have dissolved their arrangement.  Savory had other premises in New Bond Street.  In 1837 Scott was advertising ‘Voice Conductors’ (The Age, Sunday, May 28, 1837; pg. 176).  

Scott was born in 1789 in Calne, Wiltshire.  He may have been from relatively humble origins but I have not traced his whole career: there is probably more to discover.  He certainly married before 1819 when his daughter Emmaline or Emmeline was born.  In 1822, he was a supposed inventor of a stomach pump.  It seems to have caused some controversy in The Lancet (p.52, 1824).  His double action bidet pump, lavement, cornets and soniferon can be seen in A companion to the medicine chest, and compendium of domestic medicine (1840) by John Savory – see the picture above.  His son Montagu Scott was a solicitor and his son was Percy Montagu Scott, a naval gunnery expert, who was a student at UCL.  Whether there is a connection there with his grandfather’s pumps we may never know.

William Blackmore Pine was born on the 4th of August 1812 in Tovil near Maidstone.  He was the son of John Pine and his wife Rebecca, nee Carberry.  His parents were non-conformists, his birth being registered as such in London in 1829.  In 1844 he married an Irish girl, Louisa Hawkins, in Lambeth.  He was the front for Scott’s business for many years but eventually he emigrated to Australia.  Pine designed a hearing instrument himself, with this rather attractive flower cornet from 1849.  One page in The Times (Tuesday, Jul 02, 1850; pg. 11; Issue 20530), has adverts for Pine’s cornet, Rein’s auricles, and S. and B. Solomons’s “organic vibrator an extraordinarily powerful, small, newly invented instrument for deafness, entirely different from all others, to surpass anything of the kind that has been, or probably ever can be, produced” (ibid).

From “the Quack Doctor” pages by medical historian Caroline Rance, I discovered Scott had an embarrassing and tragic episode when a boy was fished out of the Thames at Waterloo Bridge and brought to his house. He said to them, “Be off with you – take it to Charing Cross Hospital” (Medical TimesJuly, 1844, p.308-9).  “It” –  the boy – died.  Scott declined to appear at the inquest, sending a ‘medical man’ Mr. Pine.  As you will see, the Medical Times questioned Scott’s medical background, asking “Who is Dr Scott?  He is no member of the London College”.  It can be no coincidence that not long afterwards, the letter appeared from Heidelberg, assuring British readers that they were a genuine medical school, though that some were purporting to have degrees from them when that was not true.  These clippings from The Medical Times of August the 20th, 1844, p.391-2, illustrate the problem of guaranteeing that a medical degree was genuine.  Scott had obtained his from Heidelberg in 1833.  Obtaining a place in a British Medical School may not have been easy without the ‘right’ background, so perhaps studying abroad was a serious option for clever students with little family wealth.  There were a number of James Scotts around in the 1840s in central London, but it seems that our Scott is one and the same.  He seems to have known John Snow, of Cholera fame, and to have hosted a medical meeting of the Westminster Medical Society at his premises, on least on one occasion.

A FAMILY TRAGEDY

Rein continued his business until his death in 1896, employing a brother-in-law Michael Payne, and later a nephew Cornelius Payne.  Rein’s son, the third Frederick Charles, does not seem to have been terribly happy.  He married Mary Aleyna Winter in 1867, but of their two children, the first girl died aged two, and the second Nelly Maud (or Nellie Maud) never married.  He seems to have used the name Charles. There are two unfortunate stories to be found about him, which point the way to his end.  The first is from April 1893:

FROM THE DOCK TO THE JURY BOX
Frederick Charles Rein, living in the Strand, was charged with being drunk and disorderly.  The case was last on the list, but it was heard first as the prisoner was anxious to get away, he being one of the jurymen engaged at the Law Courts. – Police-Constable 461 E stated that at 7 o’clock on Thursday evening prisoner was having an altercation with a match boy in the Strand. He was very drunk, made a great noise, and refused to go away.  Prisoner denied being drunk, but said he was excited owing to a dispute with his father. – He was fined ten shillings (Daily News, Saturday, April 22, 1893; Issue 14682).

A second incident occurred in December 1894. Under what the The Dundee Courier & Argus uncharitably calls A CHRISTMASTIDE PHILANTHROPIST, but The Standard just WESTMINSTER, the following appears:

Frederick Carden, 54, describing himself as a carriage trimmer and refusing his address, was charged with robbing Mr. Frederick Rein at the Victoria Station of the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway. – Prosecutor resides at Landwednock, Sutton, in the County of Surrey.  His recollection of what occurred was of a rather hazy description, but said that he had some notion whilst sitting on the railway station platform that the Prisoner, professing to be a “well-disposed person who would see him home,” gave him a quantity of rum, which he (Mr. Rein) was fool enough to drink. – The story from this point was continued by Detective-sergeant Osborn, who noticed the couple on the seat together, and doubted the philanthropic intention of the Prisoner.  Concealed in a railway brake the detective watched and saw the Prisoner make three attempts to get the Prosecutor’s umbrella from between his knees, which were crossed.  Failing to pull it away, Prisoner undid the Prosecutor’s waistcoat and took out his gold watch, which he failed to easily detach.  Mr. Rein seemed to rouse himself a bit during this operation, but the Prisoner gave him some more rum after himself pretending to drink.  With the last lot of spirits Prosecutor seemed quite overcome.  Prisoner lent [sic] over him and was clearing his pockets when Witness rushed out and seized him. Mr. Rein’s gloves were at the time in the Prisoner’s trouser pockets. – The Detective’s evidence was corroborated to a large extent by a telegraph clerk, and Osborn said that a remand would enable other witnesses to attend. – Prisoner said it was all a mistake through a good-natured act.  He got acquainted with the Prosecutor early in the evening in the Strand and being Christmas time accepted his invitation to have a drink.  Mr. Rein also treated a boot black.  Prosecutor asked him (Prisoner) to see him safe home, and after various stoppages they got to Victoria.  On the way the gentleman gave money to policemen for treats, and at Victoria he was very liberal with refreshment to the officials.  He (Prisoner) during the whole evening carried Mr. Rein’s parcel and his gloves.  After a long sleep in the lavatory, which resulted in the loss of his train, Prosecutor sat down on one of the station seats, and rum was brought to him because he complained of feeling chilly. – Mr. De Rutzen remanded the Prisoner in custody (The Standard, Tuesday, December 25, 1894; pg. 6; Issue 21990).

One can only imagine the conflict between father and son.  Frederick senior died on 1st March 1896 of diabetes, senile decay, and exhaustion, his nephew Cornelius being present.  His wife inherited £814 9d net.  She probably sold the business fairly soon, to the Optician who worked in the shop next door, Charles Kahn.  Frederick junior retired, but died on 20th April, 1900 in Wendover, home of the Payne family, of “chronic Alcoholism, 2 years, influenza and bronchitis, 21 days”.  He cannot have left his wife and daughter with much, for in 1911 they were living in Newton Abbott, Devon, working as respectively a dressmaker and a daily governess.LVK Rein signature

Kahn kept the trading name of F.C. Rein and Son, and curiously, his son Leslie Victor Kahn was eventually to adopt the surname Rein himself.  He was clearly technically adept, learning about electronics and writing a letter to Wireless World in 1932 (p.525-6), that is an appeal for what we would now call professional audiologists, and saying that he had then ten years experience working with audiometers and had invented two.  He died in 1956, and in 1963 or thereabouts, the business was, we are told in various books, taken over by Amplivox.  It was only under Kahn that the claim that Rein was ‘est. 1800’ first appears in adverts, based on what evidence, if any, we cannot say.  I suspect that Leslie Kahn Rein passed that on to Goldstein on one of the trips to America that the Kahn family website mentions in the link above.

Here is a picture from The New Acoustics by N.W. McLachlan, OUP 1936, and it was published courtesy of Captain L.V.K. Rein, who we might suppose is the gentleman.  Note that his subject or customer is seated in the acoustic chair.

I try to support claims as far as possible, but please point out any errors you find.  Where people make unsupported claims, or claims with secondary evidence or non-contemporary evidence, be a little sceptical.  Never take it as read – check the sources of claims, particularly if they seem implausible.  This blog grew far beyond what I had intended, and much was written and researched in my own time.  It is not intended as a ‘finished’ history, rather as a stimulus to others to discover more.

REIN family

Whitechapel Parish Records – London Metropolitan Archives; London, England; Reference Number: P93/MRY1/040

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:1:MP5KY5G

1851 Census – Class: HO107; Piece: 1511; Folio: 184; Page: 1; GSU roll: 87845

1861 Census – Class: RG 9; Piece: 861; Folio: 32; Page: 18; GSU roll: 542712

1881 Census – Class: RG11; Piece: 334; Folio: 87; Page: 1; GSU roll: 1341072

1891 Census – Class: RG12; Piece: 544; Folio: 108; Page: 64; GSU roll: 6095654

The Times (London, England), Wednesday, Jan 26, 1842; pg. 3; Issue 17890 [accessed 11/4/2018]

Other references

Berger, Kenneth W., The Hearing Aid (1970)

John Bull (London, England), Saturday, May 22, 1841; pg. 243; Issue 1,067.

Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (London, England), Sunday, October 30, 1836.

Goldstein, Max, Problems of the Deaf (1933)

Neil Weir, ‘Curtis, John Harrison (1778–1860)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/57673, accessed 8 Nov 2016]

Weir, Neil, and Mudry, Albert, Otorhinolaryngology: An Illustrated History, 2013.

The references were supplemented by G.R.O. certificates for Rein family members, and wills from the probate archive online, as well as searches of online newspapers and the ancestry.co.uk website. 

*Many thanks, as ever, to Norma McGilp of @DeafHeritage for pointing me towards the naturalization papers.  Rein’s naturalization papers are supported by four people.  One, Edward Henry Rudderforth was a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.  There are almost no details of him in Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows.  He was involved in the extraordinary life of Mrs Weldon.  Another was George Huntly Gordon, who worked for the Stationery Office.

**I have asked Brazilian audiologist friends if they can find anything on King John VI and will update if there is contemporary evidence forthcoming.  Even if we suppose Rein’s father made acoustic instruments, for which we have no evidence, his son, our Frederick, was born in Saxony in 1813, so his father would have to have returned there, had a family that lived apart from him, returned to London, made the throne, and his son only to have joined him in England as an adult, then not had a company name as Rein & Son until decades later.

*** See more on Maw (!) here- http://collectionsonline.nmsi.ac.uk/detail.php?type=related&kv=105380&t=people

[Minor edits 22/2/17, line added 11/4/2018, Picture of Rein added 9/8/2018]

[More added on Muhlhauser 12/10/2018]

[Minor edit 19/11/2019]

Ralph Duncombe Jackson of the British Deaf and Dumb Association

By H Dominic W Stiles, on 31 October 2016

Ralph Duncombe Jackson was born in South Shields in 1848, eldest son of Robert Jackson and his wife Charlotte.  We are told that he was deafened at the age of four from an attack of scarlet fever (Ephphatha, from which this is broadly taken).  That would have been in 1852/3.  He was educated at the Newcastle ‘Northern Counties School for the Deaf‘, which would have meant that he was taught by William Neil.

Ralph married a deaf lady Jane Walker in 1871.  She is described in the 1891 census as deaf from childhood, and Jane’s sister Isabella, living next door in Normanby St, Monkwearmouth, is also described as deaf.  Isabella’s husband, William Morrison, a millsawyer aged 42, was like his brother-in-law Ralph, deaf from scarlet fever.

Ralph had a varied career, unfortunately interrupted by ill-health, though his obituary does not tell us what form that took.  He began as a compositor, working on the Daily Post – I have no idea about the Daily Post, as it does not appear on the British Newspaper Archive.  If you know, please leave a note.  At any rate, his health forced him from that job and he became a grocer in Normanby Street, Monkwearmouth.  He became a missioner to the local deaf community in the urban north-east, and in 1898 became a ‘Scripture Reader’ for the Northumberland and Durham Mission, eventually becoming a  full time missioner.  Unfortunately we have no local mission reports before 1920, though the Northumberland and Durham Mission dates from 1876.  He was long a member of the British Deaf and Dumb Association, ‘almost from its formation’, acting as a local secretary when he lived in Sunderland.

Ralph and Jane had three daughters, and a son Ralph who emigrated to New Zealand.  He died in 1910 after having a major operation and then developing pneumonia.Duncombe Jackson  His funeral was so well attended by friends that there was insufficient room in the chapel for all to be seated.

Death of Mr. R. Duncombe Jackson, Ephphatha, 1910, no.29 p.107 (picture)

Letter, Deaf and Dumb Times (June 1890) p10-11

Wills and Probate

1891 Census Class: RG12; Piece: 4150; Folio: 116; Page: 10; GSU roll: 6099260

jackson letter