Phonozoic Text Archive, Document 053
"Phonographs Ordered Out. Fairmount Park Commissioners Say That They Transmit Disease," New York Times, July 29, 1890.
PHILADELPHIA, July 28. -- The Edison phonograph must be taken from Fairmount Park. The Park Commission has pronounced it dangerous and banished it.
A few days ago George M. Rogers introduced a phonograph at the Dairy. It cost Mr. Rogers $350, and he charged visitors 5 cents a head for the use of it. In this way he got back $150.
Mr. Hyde put in a machine at Lemon Hill at a cost of $400. It was ordered removed before it brought the proprietor any income.
Charles A. Shrouds, of Belmont, and his rival at Strawberry Mansion, each invested in four-hundred-dollar machines. The Park Board has refused to allow them to be longer used.
Secretary Dougherty of the Park Commission to-day explained that the Board of Health had nothing to do with the matter. He said that a member of the Committee on Police had objected to the use of the machines on the ground that they were injurious to the public health, not only on account of the liability to cause deafness, but because there was an opportunity to transmit diseases of the ear by their indiscriminate use by the public. It was also claimed that the insertion of the hearing tube into the ear is conducive to the contraction of various diseases of the blood, owing to the contact of the tube with the membranes.