OTHER OSRD RESEARCH GROUPS I25 



greater difficulty, which involved techniques of both NDRC and CMR and 

 yet clearly fell outside the fields of both. 



After consulting NDRC and CMR, Bush in January 1944 established 

 a Committee on Sensory Devices to operate in this area and to report 

 directly to him. The Committee members were: George W. Corner, Chair- 

 man (anatomist, Carnegie Institution of Washington); Henry A. Barton 

 (Director, American Institute of Physics); A. J. Carlson (physiologist, 

 University of Chicago); Wallace O. Fenn (physiologist. University of 

 Rochester); Stacy R. Guild (otologist, Johns Hopkins University); Karl S. 

 Lashley (psychologist, Yerkes Laboratories). 



The Committee immediately tackled the problem of developing a reading 

 machine for the blind, i.e., a device for converting printed matter into some 

 sort of sensory stimulation other than visual, and a guidance device for use 

 by the blind somewhat as a flashlight is used by a sighted person walking 

 in the dark. It was clear from the start that invention and engineering 

 would not be the chief problem in these somewhat fantastic enterprises. 

 The really critical question was how much the blind man could learn about 

 the objects and scenes before him through instruments that stimulated his 

 hearing or his sense of touch. How far could a buzz in his ears or a tingle 

 on his skin be made to give him knowledge of a printed word or of an 

 obstacle in his path? The machines must speak in codes that could be 

 learned and that could be made to convey images of useful quality. 



It was evident that much of the work in design and construction would 

 be of such novel character that the Committee would require facilities for 

 working out preliminary developments before going to outside industrial 

 and academic laboratories for more exact apparatus. Haskins Laboratories 

 was placed under contract for this purpose, and other contracts were placed 

 in proper relationship to the central laboratory contract. 



In addition to its program of aid to the blind, the Committee had a 

 related program for the development of devices to aid persons of low 

 visual acuity. 



As a part of its general demobilization program, OSRD on November i, 

 1945, entered into a contract with the National Academy of Sciences for 

 work in the field of sensory devices. Under this contract the Academy com- 

 bined the work on prosthetic devices with that on sensory devices under 

 a single Board for Prosthetic and Sensory Devices. The OSRD Committee 

 on Sensory Devices was dissolved and the same persons became members 

 of the Committee on Sensory Devices of the Academy Board. The half- 

 dozen OSRD contracts in the field were terminated and the contractors 

 entered into subcontracts under the prime contract between OSRD and the 

 Academy. The final step in the transfer of the program came when OSRD 

 transferred the prime contract to the Surgeon General of the Army. The 

 principal effect of the transfer was to give the Army a well-organized, 



