What accident caused Edison to go deaf?

Question

My book says that he weant deaf at the age of twelve due to an accident. It does not list the accident. What happened to Thomas Edison?

also: in what year did he invent the writing telegraph. My book dies not say, they just said that when he was 15 he got a job as a telegraph operator. He got bored and invented the writing telegraph. So did he do that at 15, or later on. >??????

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Answer 1

Edison described himself as deaf, but in fact he was not totally deaf. It is more accurate to say he was very hard of hearing and saw advantages to being deaf - for example, he said that it helped him concentrate on his work.

It is not really known how Edison lost his hearing. Edison had many ear problems throughout his childhood. Was he really boxed in the ears as a child? The movie "Young Tom Edison" shows Edison (played by Mickey Rooney) being boxed in the ears after he accidentally set fire to a train car with his experiments. But why, then, did Edison's father and his son Charles also have the same hearing loss? It seems that hearing loss ran in the family. An illness might also have made Edison's hearing worse.

Another story, told by Edison himself, says that when he was 15 a train accident injured his hearing more. He was picked up by the ears by a conductor to keep from falling out of a train and to help pull him up. He said that he heard something "pop" inside his ears and soon began to lose much more of his hearing. Maybe Edison thought this had caused his hearing loss, but experts doubt it.

Edison's first invention was the transmitter and receiver for the automatic telegraph. Nine years before Edison was born, Samuel F. B. Morse was famous for inventing the telegraph. The telegraph sent messages over wires using "Morse code". In morse code, the alphabet and numbers are written in combinations of dots, dashes, and short and long sounds. By the time Edison began doing experiments, telegraph lines went across the country. He wanted to learn how to be a telegrapher and send messages over telegraph wires.

While selling newspapers along the railroad, something happened that changed his life. Edison saved the life of a station official's child. The child fell onto the tracks of an oncoming train. The boy's father thanked Edison by teaching him how to use the telegraph. Edison used scrap metal to build a telegraph set and practiced the Morse code.

When Edison was 16, he moved to Toronto, Canada. He became a telegraph assistant. His job was to report to Toronto every hour by telegraph signal. Edison thought this was a waste of time. He invented a gadget that sent a signal even if he was asleep. This was his first invention - the transmitter and receiver for the automatic telegraph. His boss found him asleep. Edison was almost fired.

From 1863-1868, he worked as a "tramp telegrapher," moving 13 times in seven years. Later he earned 150 patents on telegraph improvements alone. When Edison was 21, he got a job in Boston as an expert night telegraph operator. Edison worked to improve a telegraph machine that would send many messages at the same time over the same wire. He borrowed money from a friend, and soon quit his job so that he could spend all his time inventing.

Answer 2

Couple different sources netted these. Since they are similar I'd imagine there's a grain or truth in this scenario:

The cause is not definitely known - it could have been a result of early childhood illness or the result of a "boxing" of his ears by a rail conductor, possibly a myth.

When he was twelve he got his first job at the train station as a train boy selling candy and newspapers. Books were so important to him that he spent all his money on them. One day while trying to catch a train a trainman reached and grabbed him by the ears. While pulling Edison up, something cracked in his ears and right after that he began to go deaf.

Answer 3

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RE:
What accident caused Edison to go deaf?
My book says that he weant deaf at the age of twelve due to an accident. It does not list the accident. What happened to Thomas Edison?

Answer 4

I read that it was no accident. Some fool got
angry and boxed his ears. Maybe someone
can enlighten us on this.

Answer 5

Who?

Answer 6

he was pulled onto a train by his ears

Answer 7

No clue. try Answers.com