Throughout the month of April, Historical Collections invited the UVA community to visit the lobby of the Health Sciences Library to see our new exhibit: "'Cures of Yesterday': Treating Deafness Throughout History."

Inspired by Dr. Jai Virdi's book entitled Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History, this pop-up exhibit used medical artifacts and rare books from our collections. As we commemorated National Deaf History Month, we highlighted a variety of materials that aim to help researchers interpret and understand the history of deafness, hearing, and hearing aids. From conversation horns to transistor hearing aids, these materials tell a story of the evolution of hearing aid research, cures, and technology that honor the resilience of the Deaf community throughout history. You can scan the QR code in the image to browse more hearing aids in our medical artifacts collection or click here.

a picture of an exhibit case filled with hearing horns, electric hearing aids, and rare books about the history of deafness.

In the case, we displayed a mix of 19th and 20th century hearing aids in various formats.

 

On the left side of the case were two conversation trumpets from the 1800s, a hearing horn circa 1889-1924, and an ear trumpet from circa 1880/1910. To show the advancements in hearing aids, we also displayed an Acousticon Electric Hearing Apparatus circa 1905-1930, a Sonotone Hearing aid from the 1940s, and a Zenith Regent Hearing Aid from 1955. Many onlookers commented that the small, rectangular hearing aids resemble like the First Generation iPod and wondered if these inspired Apple. 

 

On the right side of the case, we placed some rare books from our collection that focus on hearing, ear trumpets, deafness, and the ear. In the upper left corner is a book entitled Practical Observations on Aural Surgery and the Nature and Treatment of Diseases of the Ear. Published in 1853 and written by Dr. William Robert Wilde, the book was important because it demonstrated that the middle ear is the site of origin of most ear diseases. He is remembered for his method of treating acute mastoiditis using "Wilde's incision," but most Irish literature enthusiasts know him to be the father of writer Oscar Wilde. 

Since we named the exhibit in honor of Dr. Jai Virdi's book entitled Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History, we decided to display a copy. Virdi's book can be found on the UVA Library catalog here.