Hearing International

Have you ever tried to sneak up on a fly?   It’s impossible as they seem to have a sixth sense for knowing when to fly away just before you swat them with a newspaper.  It’s a difficult task to rid yourself of these pests as you wander aimlessly around the room swatting and missing, swatting and missing.  How do they

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 5% of the world’s population, roughly 360 million people, including 328 million adults and 32 million children, have disabling hearing loss, which refers to hearing loss greater than 40dB in the better hearing ear in adults and greater than 30dB in the better hearing ear in children.  WHO tells us that most of these

A great advancement in medication was made on October 19, 1943 in the laboratory of Selman Abraham Waksman at Rutgers University by Albert Schatz, a graduate student. Waksman and his laboratory discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, streptomycin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Two of these, streptomycin and neomycin, found extensive application in the treatment of numerous infectious diseases. Streptomycin, however,  was

Charles Bell left his position as a surgeon at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and, in 1804, moved with his brother John to London, where they set up a private school of surgery and anatomy.   While John did not have to deal with the jealousy and arguments with his Edinburgh colleagues, Scottish medical people were not very highly thought of in London at the time so he

Well known for his industry, determination and eloquence John Bell (1676-1708), was a Presbyterian minister who presided over the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland upon the death of William III (1650-1702).   His son, William Bell (1704-1779), left the Presbyterians and became quite well known in the Scottish Episcopal Church at a time when it was under many restrictions and persecutions by

Recently, there have been published reports of a correlation between HIV/AIDS and hearing loss.  HIV/AIDS is a topic that is not discussed enough in today’s audiological circles, perhaps because its incidence has been decreasing in most developed nations. However, HIV/AIDS remains a serious problem, and continues to be a pandemic in some parts of the world.   Sidibé (2012) in his United Nations HIV/AIDS

Dear Readers: During this holiday season, the editors at Hearing Health & Technology Matters (HHTM) are taking some time off. However, we are not leaving you without anything to read on our blog this week. Instead, we are publishing a special holiday edition filled with what we call our Readers’ Choices. HHTM has had more than half a million page

Those of us who do clinic each week often have to answer the question for our patients, “Are Q-Tips really that bad?” This week’s Hearing International discussion investigates that question.  The current thought is that most attempts to clean the ears by using cotton swabs only result in pushing the wax further into the ear canal. Wax is not formed in the

You would have to have been asleep over the past few months not to know there is a terrible Ebola virus epidemic raging in West Africa.  While the disease is mainly in Africa currently, with people’s travel habits these days, it could soon be in many countries. The current outbreak in Africa began in March 2014 and is the largest, most complex Ebola

                               Who’da Thunk it?  The Kansas City Royals in the World Series!  Of course, they are playing the San Francisco Giants and the series is going on as this is posted on October 28, 2014.  At Hearing International we had a baseball post a few weeks ago about Dummy Hoy, a deaf player instrumental in the development of the sign language used