The ear : its anatomy, physiology, and diseases : a practical treatise for the use of medical students and practitioners / by Charles H. Burnett.

  • Burnett, Charles H. (Charles Henry), 1842-1902.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ear : its anatomy, physiology, and diseases : a practical treatise for the use of medical students and practitioners / by Charles H. Burnett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    lobule plump, pendent, and unattached to the cheek at its ante- rior margin. These characteristics are seen in all portraits of great men which Lavater gives, and are easily ohserved in liv- ing celebrities. The same writer also says: In a perfect ear the ovoid lobule hangs from the cartilage witli a rounded lower margin, which, at its inner border, is not confluent with the face. Now, if this inner margin be adherent to the cheek, and at the same time the lobule be only a segment of an ellipse, there is more or less tendency to imperfect cerebral action. A more import- ant form is seen when the lobe is not only soldered to the cheek, but its posterior half cut away, as it were, and the helix defective. A knowledge of these peculiarities in the ear of an individual may become of great legal value, as in the Tichborne case, in wbicb it was shown that the • claimant's ears were altogether different from those of the lost heir. Comparative Functions of the Auricle.—The functions of the auricle are modified by the habits of the animal, and, since in most four-footed mammals the external ear is well developed, we have an opportunity of observing in them a variety of func- tions, acoustic and otherwise, acquired by the auricle. The large, long, and easily moved auricles are found in animals that are timid and often pursued by stronger and sagacious animals, wbile those which pursue, as lions, tigers, etc., possess auricles which are short and directed forwards. We have no positive means of finding out how sounds are modified by these peculiarities in the auricles of these animals. However, by applying a variety of speaking trumpets to our ears, and by alterations in the position of these artificial auri- cles, as well as of our own by manipulation, we may form at least an approximate idea of the modification in hearing pro- duced by the size, shape, and position of the auricle. By such experiments we see that it is highly probable that ordinary sounds are augmented, and faint sounds rendered very audible to animals with largely developed auricles, by the increased resonance such organs produce, a function of the auricle useful to animals which are rapacious as well as to timid ones which are pursued.