The questions of aural surgery.

  • Hinton, James, 1822-1875.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The questions of aural surgery. 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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    lie accounts effective for the construction of a binocular speculum.* Dr. Blake lias also constructed small reflecting glasses, like those used by dentists, to be inserted into the tympanum in cases of perforation of the membrane when the state of the parts admits. And it is con- ceivable that in some cases of minute growths or caries these might be very valuable. In introducing the speculum, it must be remembered that (beginning from without) the meatus winds, first, a little forwards, and then backwards and slightly upwards, so that there is a tendency for the eye to fall on the wall of the meatus, instead of reaching the membrane and the speculum accordingly must be introduced well into the passage, and directed first a little forwards, for the most part with a slight pressure on the outer part of the posterior wall, to straighten the cartilaginous portion of * Arcliiv. fiirOhrenheilkunde, 1873, p. 239. Since a really efficient instrument of this kind would probably be valuable for estimating the irregularities of form presented by the membrane, I append Dr. Eysell's suggestion, which appears as yet not to have been carried out;— Two prisms of small refracting angles (3D-5°) are so placed in a setting that they touch one another with their refracting edges, and that the border surface of the one lies in the same plane with the border surface of the other that is turned to the same side, and these are introduced between the reflector and the speculum, and as near as possible to the speculum; their edges must be vertical, and the border surfaces above described must run nearly parallel to the median plane of the patient. The observer now, by means of any of the customary reflectors, throws light upon the membrane through either of the prisms, and receives on the right and left eye respectively an image through each prism. With a little practice these are easily made to coincide.