Subjective noises in the head and ears : their etiology, diagnosis and treatment / by H. Macnaughton-Jones.

  • Macnaughton-Jones, H. (Henry), 1844-1918.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Subjective noises in the head and ears : their etiology, diagnosis and treatment / by H. Macnaughton-Jones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    99/168 (page 87)
    berg, in inflation of the tympanum. If I allow, says Gruber, the patient to incline his head strongly towards one shoulder during this treatment, it is always success- ful, especially if I pass the nozzle into the nostril which corresponds to the ear into which I wish to inject the air. In those cases in which the air comes into the ear of the other side as well, it almost always happened that the patient could feel the passage of the air more strongly in the upturned ear. The nasal pronunciation of the vowel a as suggested by Lucae assists the inflation in some cases more satisfactorily than the act of swallowing.* In the paper read by Lowenberg in 1876 (Inter- national Otological Society's Transactions), on the con- sequences of closed Eustachian tube, he contrasted the change taking place in an artificially shut bronchus with that happening in the tympanic cavity with an inter- cepted Eustachian tube. He then suggested, with a view to substitute for atmospheric air a gaseous com- pound that will not suffer diminution in the tympanum, being as near as possible in its nature to the mixture which results from a previous interchange (and which must necessarily behave quite differently towards the blood in the tympanum from the unaltered air), the peri- odical inflation of previously respired air, composed of nitrogen, a large quantity of carbonic acid, a very little oxygen, warmed to the body temperature, and saturated with watery vapour. To get the required compound, the patient is made to take a deep inspiration, hold the breath for as long a period as possible, and then expire. I tried several forms of inflating bag with the desire of meeting Lowenberg's suggestion. My object was to obtain an insufflator which would enable a patient to readily ventilate the tympanum, and also to insufflate * British Medical Journal, May 3, 1884 (paper by author).