Word: victoreen
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Last week an energetic Colorado inventor named John Victoreen was trying to replace reliance on luck with a higher degree of certainty. No M.D., but a self-educated physicist who has made a fortune in X rays and nucleonics, Victoreen "retired" from business six years ago to work longer hours than ever in his own research laboratory in Colorado Springs. His interest in hearing aids began when a hard-of-hearing friend. Radiologist Kenneth Allen, asked Victoreen to make him a gadget that would enable him to hear without straining at medical conventions. Size and weight were no object. Said...
...result was the Vicon, which was being offered last week to ear specialists for free testing. Because of Victoreen's highly individual theories about sound transmission and reproduction, the Vicon contains not one microphone but four. With four batteries it is bulkier and heavier (6½ oz.) than other transistor aids. Doctors do not object to this; they generally deplore the fad for smallness and concealment. Men wear it under their shirts, suspended from a harness around their necks; women can clip it to a reinforced shoulder strap...
...real controversy is over Victoreen's determination to keep his hearing aid out of the hands of dealers. He has set up a special company to handle the Vicon, insists that he will sell it only on prescription, and will not advertise to the public. He wants doctors, not dealers, to distribute it (at $200 plus whatever fee the doctor chooses to add). So far, Colorado otologists have balked at the idea of acting as distributors because they do not want to be responsible for servicing instruments. "I can't take calls at 2 o'clock...
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