With Four Microphones

One out of every ten U.S. citizens is hard of hearing to some degree, doctors estimate. At least 4,000,000 have a disability severe enough to call for medical attention. But 3,000,000 of these do not seek it, prefer to go on cocking their heads, cupping their hands behind their ears and trying to lipread. Even those who go to a doctor are not assured of the best help; across the U.S. there are few speech-and-hearing centers where a patient can be rigorously examined for correctable causes of deafness (e.g., emotional factors or unsuspected infection). Many doctors with limited testing devices in their offices wind up saying simply: "Try a hearing aid." After that, the patient is lost among at least 117 types of aids made by 40 companies all pushing their products with vigorous sales promotion. If the confused patient gets the right type of aid, it is often just plain luck.

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 Dr. Allen: "I don't care if I have to wear a football helmet and carry the batteries in a suitcase."

The 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 (6 1/2 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.

Hearing specialists who have done comparison testing rate the Vicon as good as other aids for the conduction type of deafness, better than most (and perhaps best of the lot) for many types of nerve deafness, which present a tougher problem. The instrument is not recommended for slight impairment of hearing, but only for severe and moderately severe hearing disabilities.

The 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 in the morning from patients who want a hearing aid adjusted," objected one doctor. Victoreen retorts that under his system, a lot of people will hear a lot better.

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