Medicine: Only $40 a Pound

Zenith Radio Corp. gave out some deafening whoops last week in praise of its new cut-rate hearing aid. Zenith believes that this new $40 device (good hearing aids now cost from $100 to $200) will sharpen the ears of 10,000,000 deaf U. S. citizens.

It seemed ridiculous that Zenith and other companies could sell a good little radio for around $29 or less, while a one-pound hearing aid, essentially a part of a radio receiver, might cost eight or nine times as much. So for the last five and a half years Zenith’s engineers have worked at the new hearing device and a way to mass-produce it. Besides the economy of mass production, costs are cut by 1) providing the device with a tone regulator so that the wearer can adjust his own aid, eliminating professional “fittings,” 2) providing rubber earpieces of various sizes so that the aid will fit any ear, 3) having customers send the aid directly to the factory for servicing, 4) lengthening battery life (batteries benefit from the regulator feature).