I. On the differential stethophone, and some new phenomena observed by it

Abstract

Engaged for some years in investigations into the phenomena of audition, I have become cognizant of some facts which I believe have hitherto remained unnoticed, and which are certainly not generally known to physicists and physiologists. The first of which I shall treat is the restriction of hearing external sounds of the same character to one ear, when the intensity is moderately, yet decidedly greater in one ear than in the other, the hearing being limited to that ear into which the sound is poured in greater intensity. The sound is heard alternately in one ear and in the other, as it is conveyed in increasing degrees of intensity, and hearing is suspended alternately in one ear and in the other, as the sound is conveyed in lessening degrees of intensity.