HUMAN AERIALS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 124, 26 May 1923, Page 14

HUMAN AERIALS

BEACHING; THE INNER EAR.

Some people who cannot hear very well in ordinary conversation find that, when listening-in on wireless sets, their deafness is remarkably alleviated. One theory, which has been advanced to explain this (writes "a Physiologist" in the London "Evening Ne\vs") is that the telephones are held in close contact with the ears of the listener, which, again, are set on the bones of the head. The headpiece, too, presses directly on the skull bone and so, no doubt, transmits to it vibrations set up in the discs. It is a well-known fact: that it is possible to reach the inner ear through the bones of the skull, even when the outer ear is no longer functioning. This explanation, however, will scarcely account for the cases in which the sounds of a wireless telephone are transmitted through a broadcaster so that they reach the ears in much the same manner as do ordinary ■voices. Yet it would seem that, oven when listening ill this manner, some deaf persons hear wireless better than ordinary conversation. One suggestion, of a startling kind, is that, though we do not realise it, we are all of. us aerials in the sense that our bodies vibrate to the ethereal waves. Thus these waves are "received" from the ether as well as from the instrument which translates them_into sound. This double effect enables'the deaf to catch sounds and tones which they must otherwise miss. It is further pointed out that the human skin is more than a mere sense organ oi touch. In a way it is also capable of performing, though to a very small extent, the functions of ears and eyes. It is affected by light, and also by sound, in a remarkable manner. So wireless waves can "speak" to the whole body, . and__not_onlj to_ tho earsj