Audiology is a branch of science that deals with people’s hearing and balance. It also deals with hearing care and treatment for ear-related illnesses. It comes from the words “audio” meaning sound, and “-ology” meaning knowledge. The healthcare professionals in this field, known as audiologists, use various methods to treat hearing loss problems.
The world of hearing care has a fascinating history. Here are some of the important highlights throughout the years:
Audiology in the Ancient World
Humanity has been interested in diagnosing and treating hearing loss problems for millennia. One of the oldest known medical works found is the Ebers papyrus, said to have been dated from 1550 BC. The document was named after George Maurice Ebers, a German Egyptologist who acquired it back in 1873.
It contained a wide range of formulas and remedies meant to cure different illnesses. Among them were treatments for hearing loss, as how the ancient people knew it.
Later during the 4th century BC, Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician known as the father of medicine, wrote about his observations on hearing loss. He was one of the first people who used clinical research and testing to learn about the causes of hearing problems. Not much is known about what methods he used to test his hypothesis.
There were also attempts to understand hearing loss during ancient Rome. One notable example was Aulus Cornelius Celsus, a Roman medical writer and encyclopedia author. He was the first to differentiate between hearing disorders. Some of his other discoveries and treatments are still used today, although in their most minimal form.
Another one was the testing done by Archigenes, a Roman physician during the 1st century AD. He used loud sounds to stimulate the auditory system under the assumption that this can bring back a person’s hearing.
Ear Trumpets and Early Hearing Aids
Throughout the centuries, people have used ear trumpets to treat hearing loss. These are small conical devices that are designed to funnel sounds into the ear. Often, these are made from wood, animal horns, and sometimes precious metals like silver. Until the late 19th century, not much happened in the field.
In 1898, a man named Miller Reese Hutchison invented the world’s first electric hearing aid called the Akouphone. It uses a carbon transmitter that turns weak sounds louder. Although it was bulky and expensive at the time, it nevertheless paved the way for further developments in the technology. It also opened up interest in other methods of treating hearing loss.
The Birth of Modern Audiology
Audiology, as we know it today, wasn’t fully developed until decades after the invention of the Akouphone. Modern audiology started because of the discoveries of Cordia C. Bunch, in 1917. He constructed a new device that can measure auditory thresholds, as instructed by Carl Seashore, the dean of the graduate school at the University of Iowa.
Back then, hearing loss testing was done using tuning forks. Bunch was successful in building the device, calling it the audiometer. He went on to test the patients of Dr. Lee Wallace Dean, a local otolaryngologist. For the next 20 years, he continued with his experiments and wrote articles about his observations until the publication of his book titled Clinical Audiometry in 1943.
The term “audiology” itself was first published in an article in the Journal of Speech Disorders in 1946, written by Raymond Carhart and Norton Canfield. Carhart was the director of the Acoustic Clinic at the Deshon General Hospital in WWII. He provided aural rehabilitation and hearing aids to soldiers who lost their hearing. During this time, Carhart laid the foundations for how audiology is done today.
Other Contributions to Audiology
The second half of the 20th century saw numerous contributions to the field done by various individuals. Helmer Myklebust, an American psychologist, observed hearing-impaired children and their difficulty in processing auditory input. He set up a children’s hearing clinic and continued with his tests. Later on, he coined the term “auditory disorder.” Today, it’s more commonly known as auditory processing disorder or APD.
Over the next decades, audiology slowly transitioned from being exclusively done in the military to being readily available for civilians. The 50s and 60s saw the rise of various audiology programs focused on aural rehabilitation in communities. Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) clinics also had audiologists ready to perform hearing tests.
Due to this sudden increased need for audiologists, the Academy of Doctors of Audiology was finally founded in 1977 to train new hearing health professionals. The following year, the American Speech and Hearing Association was established.
Audiology in the Modern World
Since 2007, those who would like to practice audiology need to have an Au.D degree. Today, audiology has become a broad field of its own, being divided into various sub-specialties such as pediatric audiology, industrial audiology, and many more. With advancements in technology, there are now more ways to treat hearing loss than ever before.
