While the defective hearing problem has been the objective of investigators for many years past, it has assumed an added impetus since more improved types of electrical apparatus have been available. It is true that this newer equipment has lent reinforcements to the pretenders—charlatans and quacks—yet this fact should not overshadow the possibilities for good which might be accomplished by some of the recent advances in electrotherapy. For it is only by adequate and efficient scientific investigations that we are in a position to pass on the relative merits of a method.
The experiences of some otologists with diathermy and other electrophysical agents in partial deafness have prompted us to conduct systematic researches in this problem, with the chief purposes in view of determining not only the clinical value of these agents but also their scientific basis.
The roentgen ray has been employed experimentally in defective hearing,