JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

This device looks a little suspect, but it isn’t. Well, on first sight of the patent drawing this device seemed dubious and quacky, and since the patent office issued some-number of patents for quackery, it was entirely plausible that this was one of those beasts.  This is the kind of quackery beasty that would latch on to a new discovery or invention and somehow derive and twist the name or concept of the new thing into something fabulous or miraculous (as with the case of  radium suppositories and x-ray massages for the bones).

The device is a vibrating element to help people with hearing loss hear conversations on the telephone. On reading the patent though it becomes pretty clear that this thing could work, or should work, depending upon the hearing loss of the receiver.  Patented about four years after the Bell patent, there were nearly immediate reports on Mr. Fiske’s invention in Scientific American, The Electrical Journal, and Engineering (seen below).