order, except that might involve general physical deterioration, and, therefore, be one of many possible results.

Two studies are being undertaken now in a community in which the family strains are particularly close, in which otologists have been interested in the past 7 years. In these particular families, both show the trend of strain. There are 360 in one group, and 158 in the other group, and they have two different types of impairment among those families.

I do not think of any sociological facts to support the other generalization clearly.

Mr. HESELTON. Excuse me, Mr. Williams. Do you wish to ask Dr. Glorig any questions? I ask that at this time because he wishes to get away.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I would like to ask him one question.

Doctor, you apparently are pretty familiar with the rating schedule of the Veterans' Administration in deaf cases.

In the case of men with amputations and men who have lost an eye, in addition to the percentage rating they are also granted a statutory award. It used to be $30, and I believe it is $47 now.

Does that apply also in the case of a man who has lost the faculty of hearing in one of his ears, or who becomes deaf?

Dr. GLORIG. Not that I know of; no, sir.

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is all.

Mr. HESELTON. Does anybody have any further questions of Dr. Glorig?

Doctor, we thank you very much for coming here this morning. Dr. GLORIG. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee.

Dr. HARDY. You have touched in your questions on a couple of basic ideas about research. I have some personal opinions about this that may or may not be shared by other members of the panel group here.

I think, apparently from the facts that there are several lines of research, some of which are being followed, and all of which need to be further developed than they presently have been developed.

First there is a line that has to do specifically with prevention, and that is a specific medical inquiry at the level of both pure research, if you will, and applied clinical research, and the casual relationship between such things prenatally as damage in embryo and the effect of the RH factor, and damage in embryo or immediately after birth to the hearing mechanism, and more particularly the effects of withdrawal or the absence of a sufficient amount of oxygen in the blood as accompanying the phenomenon of birth.

Those are large questions that need a great deal of inquiry and attention focused on them generally and by people in obstetrical practice in various parts of the country.

It is one state of affairs in a large metropolitan center where there are large hospitals with big medical staffs, and it is quite a different thing out across the country where that kind of good medical attention is not available.

Then there is a range of research inquiry that has to do with the restoration of impaired hearing, so far as that can be done. Dr. Glorig commented on some of the problems centered around otosclerosis.

It is a familiar thing, which involves the growth of bone in the middle ear structure.

It usually has its onset toward the end of the second decade of life. As information is being gathered more extensively, it becomes clear that there are certain instances of it at birth or early in childhood. Largely that problem is handled in these days by a procedure called fenestration, in which that part of the organism is bypassed and a new entrance is made into the inner ear structure.

Otherwise the problem is handled by rehabilitative methods.

The essential point is that a good deal more inquiry simply must go on about the effect of some of these basic pathologies beyond that presently known.

One inquiry we have been concerned with locally has to do with the maintenance of that part of the hearing mechanism leading to the middle ear in good mechanical function because we know, or feel we know, that many of the problems of conductive impairment in childhood center around organic malfunctioning, and everybody is searching for good, readily available, clinical tools that can be applied early in preventive treatments, to try to make sure that such chronic effects as we talk about do not occur.

There is another major category that has much to offer in terms of fundamental research in physiology and partly in pathology and in the entire field of geriatics.

Whether you realize it or not, the reduction of infant mortality and the extension of the life span at the other end cause literally untold, uncounted kinds of problems medically and in rehabilitation. We do not yet know about the results in physiological terms in some of these aging processes to be able to think clearly about them.

We do not know the time and the nature and the extent, for instance, relative to Dr. Glorig's remarks, of the effect on the hearing mechanism of the aging process through the decades 60 to 70, 70 to 80, and from 80 on. Now, that information must be obtained. Mr. HESELTON. Doctor, may I ask you a question which may sound absurd, but what does a hearing aid do?

Dr. HARDY. A hearing aid, sir, makes sound louder.

Mr. HESELTON. Is that confined to one where there is a conductive defect?

Dr. HARDY. No, indeed. We are beginning to have the courage of our convictions and with all of the professional power we can exert in terms of professional advisers and consultants, when we know the facts and the diagnostic picture is clear in these cases and everything has been done that can be done medically and there is enough residual hearing to act as a foundation for amplification through hearing aids, we use them. We start infants wearing hearing aids these days as soon as they are able to walk. The youngest aid user was 9 months old.

That was a slightly different problem. That child was born with a condition called bilateral atresia in which the external and parts of the middle ear failed to develop. Later when he is perhaps 5 or 6 years old surgical steps will be taken to correct that, but it cannot be done now. In the meantime he has to live for the next 6 years. The nerve structure is perfectly normal and at the age of 21 months that child has a vocabulary of about 50 words, and I am sure that

39087-53-pt. 4-19

within another year he is going to get useful communicative develop

ment.

There are a lot of misconcepts of what a hearing aid can do. It does not have any brains and all it can do is amplify sounds coming in if there is enough residuum in the hearing mechanism in an adult, for instance, or a younger person.

Dr. ELSTAD. Is there not such a thing as having sound perception but no sound interpretation? I have a young man in my office and if he closes his eyes and I speak in a loud voice, he cannot get a thing, but if I speak to him when he has his eyes open, he can understand. He has sound perception.

Dr. HARDY. It is a correlative thing.

Dr. ELSTAD. Yes; they work together.

Dr. HARDY. Yes. Do you care to make a statement at this time, Dr. Elstad?

STATEMENT OF DR. LEONARD M. ELSTAD, PRESIDENT, GALLAUDET COLLEGE, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Dr. ELSTAD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am not an M. D. and I am not a Ph. D. I am an honorary LL. D. I have spent 31 years in working for the deaf. My part here is to show what is being done for deaf children.

We have 21,000 children in various schools for the deaf today in residential State schools, deaf schools, and special day schools for the deaf; 14,000 of those are in State residential schools for the deaf.

There are State residential schools for the deaf in all the States except Delaware, Nevada, Wyoming, and New Hampshire.

These children go up to approximately the 10th grade in high school. They are about 18 or 19 when they finish that course and they go out into industry at that time.

Those children who go to day schools go to approximately the eighth grade and in many cases get their education along with hearing children. Unfortunately, many of them, because of the communication handicap, are not successful in high school and drop out of school at an early age.

Then, in higher education, there is only one college for the deaf and that is the one of which I am president, Gallaudet College. It is a private corporation subsidized by Congress and, being so, we have three Congressmen on our board, one of whom is Mr. Thornberry here, who is a very good member.

Gallaudet College is a liberal arts college for the deaf. That does not mean that it is not possible for a deaf high-school graduate to go to an ordinary hearing college, but it is easier for them to get a full college education in a college such as ours where it is geared to the handicap under which they labor.

There is no excuse today for any deaf child not getting an education in any State of the United States.

Mr. HESELTON. Would you give us an idea of how many students you have and from where they come?

Dr. ELSTAD. You are speaking of the college now?

Mr. HESELTON. Yes.

Dr. ELSTAD. We have at the present time 262 students enrolled this fall. They are from 40 States, 4 from Canada, 1 from England, 1

from Transjordan, 1 from India, 1 from China, 1 from Norway and Sweden.

These students come to us through competitive examinations which are given in May of each year.

This being the only college for the deaf in the country it should be large enough to take all students who qualify for admittance, but so far it has not been able to do it.

We have 92 acres out here, just 10 minutes from this building. We have a lot of ground out there, but we do not have buildings enough to take care of the students.

Mr. THORNBERRY. When was your last building built, Doctor?

Dr. ELSTAD. In 1917 the ladies' dormitory burned down, and we got a new dormitory to take its place, but that is the last new building we have.

It was chartered by Congress, and Abraham Lincoln signed the charter in 1864.

Mr. HESELTON. You say if you had the school facilities you could take care of more students?

Dr. ELSTAD. Yes, we could take more.

Mr. HESELTON. How many more?

Dr. ELSTAD. Dr. Gallagher estimated that we should have a capacity for 700 students. I would say between 500 and 700. At the present time we have 262.

These students have such a tremendous handicap in communications that not too many can get up to college level, but as you increase your effectiveness at the lower levels in the schools, you get more who can qualify for college, and that is being done all the time.

We use the sign language, and we also use speech at the same time. It is called the simultaneous method. The students see a professor speaking in sign, and at the same time it is spoken, and a hearing person can sit in and get it as well as a deaf person.

In a hearing college, a deaf student has to have somebody take notes for him, and he takes those notes home at the end of the day and studies them, and he might as well take a correspondence course. Also in connection with the rest of the college life, he is always in the audience trying to catch on to what is going on.

At Gallaudet College we have 22 organizations, and a student can be secretary, treasurer, or president of an organization or a member of the athletic teams. He plays in the game and does not sit on the bench. It is a completely participating program.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Dr. Elstad.

Dr. ELSTAD. Yes, sir.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I have been out to your school several times as you may recall.

Dr. ELSTAD. Yes, sir.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Like Mr. Thornberry I have quite a personal interest in the affairs of the deaf.

The thought occurred to me at the time I was out there, and the first time I ever saw it, that there would be the best place I could think of for the Federal Government to spend a little money to replace those old buildings you have out there and give you a plant that you could operate in.

Unlike Mr. Thornberry, I am not on the board, and I have no connection with the school at all except through my interest in it as

a Member of Congress. I wonder if any plans are under way toward presenting some kind of a program to Congress whereby you might get some new buildings and some new facilities?

Dr. ELSTAD. The present budget which is before the President's Bureau of the Budget at the present time calls for a new library and a classroom building.

We had a hearing on that request about 3 weeks ago, and I am afraid that is going to go by. I do not think it will get by the Bureau of the Budget, so it will never get to Congress. Our problem is to get by the Bureau of the Budget.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Doctor, I believe if you could get 435 Members of the House and 96 Senators to go out there and look at it you could get some new buildings.

Dr. ELSTAD. We could not get the Bureau of the Budget committee out there. I invited them, and they would not go.

Mr. HESELTON. Is there any tuition involved?

Dr. ELSTAD. No student is kept out of the school because of the lack of financial support.

There is a series of Federal scholarships for the students, but we have tried, as far as we have been able to, to get as much out of tuition as possible.

Out of 82 students enrolled this fall we have an average of $600 per student in tuition. When I came there the tuition income was $45,000, and this fall it will be $178,000. So, we are getting as much as we can out of that source, and we ask Congress to make up the difference. Mr. HESELTON. Do the school officials around the country know of the opportunity to refer deaf children to your college?

Dr. ELSTAD. Unfortunately, public-school systems that educate deaf children do not know about it. I had a couple come into the college last fall, and they had a girl who had graduated from a deaf school in Chicago, and they did not know about it. It is unthinkable that they should not hear about the one college for the deaf in the country. We will do something about that. That is the trouble with this whole problem. There are 200,000 deaf people and 150 million hearing people in the country, and they just do not hear about them.

Helen Keller said:

The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important, than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. It means the loss of the most vital stimulus-the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir, and keeps us in the intellectual company of man.

That is very well put. She said if she had her life to live over again she would devote more time to the problems of the deaf because it is the most severe of the two handicaps. That is something that is not generally understood by many people, and it is very difficult to get private funds.

Mr. HESELTON. I am ashamed to confess it, but I must confess to having been in this city going on to 10 years, and this is the first I have ever heard of the college.

Dr. ELSTAD. That is not unusual.

Mr. HESELTON. It is just too bad that it is not more widely known so that more people can avail themselves of its facilities.

Mr. THORNBERRY. I am deeply interested in this problem, and as I have said to Mr. Williams so often the Members of Congress just do not realize what is at the school.