Long before the invention of our modern medical devices, Victorian doctors employed an assortment of strange objects to determine the health of their patients.
The most common method used to determine the extent of the hearing loss of patients involved a doctor holding a ticking watch at an arm’s length from the patient and asking them to report when they could hear the watch ticking. The distance between the watch and the patient was determined as the extent of their hearing loss. Although seemingly low tech compared to today’s medical standards, this method was used in many clinics and hospitals for decades and was considered one of the most precise methods of determining hearing loss.
In the same era, the acoumeter and the monochord were invented. The acoumeter was a device that would produce a series of clicks in a specific pattern, while the monochord consisted of a vibrating string to test the pitch perception of those who listened to it. Others began to experiment with tuning forks pressed against the skulls of people to test how sound traveled through the bones of the skull, a principle that would remain relevant in the invention of testing devices in the future. For a Hearing Test Near Me, visit www.imperialhearing.com/audiologist-near-me/
What’s striking about the tools that were created during the Victorian era is not their primitiveness but the amount of thinking that went into creating them without the use of electricity, amplifiers, or precision instruments. The doctors of the time did not measure decibels; they measured human experience.
This is another reminder of the role of humans in performing hearing tests. It is not about machines and hearing test devices but rather about people who listen to others to determine if they are hearing the same things as everyone else.