Miller Reese Hutchison
| Miller Reese Hutchison | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
August 6, 1876 Montrose, Alabama |
| Died | February 16, 1944 (aged 67) New York, New York |
| Occupation | Inventor |
Miller Reese Hutchison (1876–1944) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He developed some of the first portable electric devices, such as a vehicle horn and a hearing aid.
Hutchison was born August 6, 1876 in Montrose, Alabama. His father was William Hutchison and mother born Tracie Elizabeth Magruder. He attended Marion Military Institute from 1889 through 1891, Spring Hill College 1891 through 1892, the University of Mobile Military Institute from 1892 through 1895, and graduated from Auburn University (then called Alabama Polytechnical Institute) in 1897. While still in school he invented and patented a lightning arrester for telegraph lines in 1895. At the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, he volunteered and was appointed engineer for the United States Lighthouse Board, laying cables and mines to protect harbors in the Gulf of Mexico.
Hutchison was the inventor of the first electrical hearing aid, called the Akoulathon when it was first developed around 1895. It was also known as the microtelephone since it was essentially a self-contained version of the early telephone as invented by Alexander Graham Bell in the 1870s. His hearing aid was an electrical analog of the ear trumpet: a large carbon microphone called the "transmitter" captured the sound and delivered it to a small carbon "receiver", which in turn delivered its output to the ear through headphones. Hutchison's interest in the invention stemmed from a childhood friend, Lyman Gould, who was deaf from scarlet fever. Besides his training in engineering, Hutchison had attended classes at the Medical College of Alabama to study the anatomy of the ear. He formed the Akouphone Company in Alabama to market the device, but the original bulky tabletop form was not practical.
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