Word: deafness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...possible; and, in 1893 he retired to England, believing that he and Annette had not many years to live. Both lived until 1929, long enough to see their elder son become one of England's top social planners. Annette Beveridge was 86 when she died, nearly stone-deaf at the last and vigorously translating Turkish biography. "Perhaps the cleverest lady and the wickedest in her opinions that I have ever met," said Bernard Shaw...
Like so many other distinguished men, Edison attributed his success to a physical defect. At the age of twelve, he was "lifted by the ears" into a train, and began to get deaf. Growing deafness soon drove him away from conversation and into the libraries which made a deeply read man of him. While normal hearers tussled with life's "general uproar," Edison came to love the state of "insulation" which enabled him to "think out my problems" in peace. And freedom from "meaningless sounds" steadily directed his ears to certain minutiae of sound that he could hear very...
Advice to Wooers. Edison couldn't hear the roaring of a train, but when two women who were traveling in it exchanged whispered secrets, he heard every word. He was deaf to the shrillest birdsong-unless it came over his particular amplifying system, the phonograph. He could hear the sharp dots & dashes of the telegraph transmitter, but he couldn't hear a word over Mr. Bell's primitive new telephone-until he took it in hand and helped make a more efficient instrument...
...young salesman, Eugene F. McDonald Jr. hurt his head in an auto accident and became deaf in one ear. When he became the hard-driving boss of Chicago's Zenith Radio Corp., one of the biggest U.S. radiomakers, McDonald was shocked at the price of hearing aids. If a complete radio receiver sold for only $29, why should a simple amplifier (only part of a radio) cost more than six times as much? McDonald thought he could produce hearing aids as cheaply as radios and make them a profitable sideline...
Secret Ears. The loudness of McDonald's boasts has set his competitors' teeth on edge. The100-odd makers of U.S. hearing aids are well aware that their market is potentially rich. An estimated 3,000,000 Americans are deaf enough to use hearing aids. But only 800,000 do. One reason is the price. Most units sell for between $100 and $200 and cost the user about $75 to $100 a year for batteries. Another reason is vanity. The hard of hearing hate to admit...