On a new mode of treating deafness when attended by partial or entire loss of the membrana tympani, associated or not with discharge from the ear / by James Yearsley.

  • James Yearsley
Date:
1848]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a new mode of treating deafness when attended by partial or entire loss of the membrana tympani, associated or not with discharge from the ear / by James Yearsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    progress be watched, it will be found that as it goes on the matter becomes puriform. These changes from one kind of discharge to another are so constant, that no arbitrary division of otorrlioea can be fairly made. When we see a case for the first time, and find it dis¬ charging either pure pus, or mucus, or a thin serous fluid, we cannot adopt a separate mode of treatment to the different states, for a few days after the nature of the discharge may be entirely reversed, either from ex¬ ternal causes, or the state of the patient’s health. In all ordinary cases, the discharge is secreted from the mucous membrane of the tympanum, or the degenerated cuticular lining of the meatus, in the same manner as any other discharge from a mucous surface—bronchor- rhoea, or bronchitis, for examples. There is not neces¬ sarily, nor even generally, any ulceration of the secret¬ ing surface. These conditions explain the variable nature of the discharge, it being well known that the mucous membranes may, without solution of their con¬ tinuity, secrete every variety of matter, from pus to ordinary mucus. The state of the membrana tympani and of the ossicula is always a matter of importance in ear dis¬ charges. Kramer thought that the membrana tympani never ulcerated, unless from independent disease of the membrane itself; but to me this opinion is very ques¬ tionable. In a great many cases the perforation of the tympanum simply results from the presence of pus, or some other accumulation of matter, in the cavity of the drum, just as perforation of the skin attends the presence ,of pus or any foreign body beneath the cuta¬ neous tissues. In otorrhoea we may find the tympanum either perforated or entirely destroyed by the same
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