Imperfect hearing and the hygiene of the ear : including nervous symptoms, tinnitus aurium, aural vertigo, diseases of the naso-pharyngeal membrane, middle ear, and mastoid region : with home instruction of the deaf / by Laurence Turnbull.

  • Turnbull, Laurence, 1821-1900.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Imperfect hearing and the hygiene of the ear : including nervous symptoms, tinnitus aurium, aural vertigo, diseases of the naso-pharyngeal membrane, middle ear, and mastoid region : with home instruction of the deaf / by Laurence Turnbull. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    Dr. Woakes sometimes got indications of an improved action of the tei tympani after applying electricity. The chairman,' said that electricity bad been Introduced into practice trader good auspices, but that its value for diagnosis was very slight. He preferred any other indication, such as might be obtained from clinical observation. He had for some years given it up. The conclusion at which the meeting arrived w.i-, that electricity might he expected to be useful in ear diseases in proportion to the necessity which existed for increasing muscular power in some portion of the conducting apparatus, but that, up to the present, experience pointed to the fact that it was an open question, whether in such cases the results of electric treatment were permanent. Electricity in Diseases of the Ear.—The almost unanimous expression of the profession, who devote much attention to diseases of the ear, is that electricity cannot he depended upon, except as a means of diagnosis, and to relieve some functional disturbance after all the ordinary mean9 have been employed to place the ear in a healthy condition, as, for instance, in the treatment of paretic deafness and in Weber-Liel's progressive deafness. For the best methods of employing this agent see full account in this work. In paresis of the muscles of the palate one pole should be applied to the vail of the palate posteriorly, while the ordinary sponge-holder is placed on the neck, over superior cer- vical ganglion, which is reached by making deep pressure behind the angle of the lower jaw, or by introducing a vulcanite catheter (in which there is a wire, which is seen at the tip, passing it there) through the nostrils into the Eusta- chian orifice, and to this one pole of the battery is connected, and the sponge- holding poles applied over the mastoid process. By passing the metallic stem iu our rheophore down in contact with the membrana-tympani with a feeble elec- tric current, the whole middle, and even internal ear, can become influenced through the auricular branch of the auriculo-temporal nerve and otic ganglion. By this means also opacities of this important membrane may thus be influenced, also the relaxed condition of the same membrane, and it will be found, in some cases, useful in relieving tinnitus. Urbantschitsch,1 in his text-book of Otology, Vienna, 1880, speaks favorably of the galvanic treatment by stating that he observed in some cases good re- sults from the electric treatment of the acoustic nerve. We find that the gal- vanic current is uniformly superior to the faradic current in defective hearing as a sequel of cerebro-spinal meningitis. The experiments of Katyschevv3and Dr. Dobroworsky on the effect of faradi- zation at the neck and the consequent narrowing of the bloodvessels, give the following results: By the faradization of the sympathetic fibres in the neck, the inflammatory redness of the drum-head and the middle ear in myringitis and perforative tympanic disease is rendered less intense, and the subjective sensations (pain and noises) diminish at the same time. The hearing is also improved. By galvanization, also, the inflammatory redness of the drum-head decreases, but the effects are not so constant or so decided ; only the closing, opening, and variations in the intensity of the current have their influence. Dr. Cassell states that for very recent perforations I do nothing but treat the 1 W. B. Dalby.F.R.C S., M.A., of the subsection of Otology of the British Medical Asso- ciation, August 11, 1880. 3 See Arch. Otology, vol. ix. part 4. 3 See Arch. Otology, vol. ix. No. 4.