A practical treatise on the diseases of the ear : including a sketch of aural anatomy and physiology / by D.B. St. John Roosa.

  • Roosa, D. B. St. John (Daniel Bennett St. John), 1838-1908.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases of the ear : including a sketch of aural anatomy and physiology / by D.B. St. John Roosa. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    we are discussing the affections of the middle ear, and I there- fore content myself with this description of it, while we pass on to Valsalva's method of inflating the ear. VALSALVA'S METHOD. The distinguished anatomist Valsalva, who is well known to the profession by his treatise on the ear, suggested a means of inflating the membrana tympaui, which has become so popular as to be used by nearly two-thirds of all the patients who come to physicians on account of their ears. It has been recommended by generations of medical men as a means of curing affections of the ear, or of determining if the Eustachian tube be open, or the drum-head broken. Universal as is its use, I regard it as almost a useless and not an entirely safe method. It consists essentially in forcing air into the ear, after a vigorous inspiration, the mouth and nostrils being closed. It will be observed that when the ear is inflated by this method, a very great use of the muscles of the chest is made ; and just in this lies the danger to the ear. This vigorous expansion of the chest causes a congestion of the ear which is sometimes more or less permanent, and materially harms the part by increasing the flow of blood to it. There is another objection to the frequent employment of the Val- salvian method, or experiment, as it is sometimes styled. It soon ceases to have its momentary effect of increasing the hearing distance, which it does by rendering the membrane of the drum tenser, and then the membrane becomes relaxed and flaccid, so that I have sometimes seen the membrana tympaui of patients who have been in the daily and perhaps hourly habit of forcing air into the ears, flap to and fro like a valve on the slightest movements of the nostrils. This latter objection, of course, applies to Politzer's method if it be very frequently practised; but as it must be done by means of an apparatus, patients are not so apt to take it into their own hands. I do not now advise the use of the Valsalviau method in the treatment of aural disease, and as a means of diagnosis it