Tinnitus aurium, or, Singing in the ears : remarks on its causes and treatment / by W. Douglas Hemming.

  • Hemming, William Douglas, 1848-1881.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tinnitus aurium, or, Singing in the ears : remarks on its causes and treatment / by W. Douglas Hemming. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    other of the above causes. In such cases, all the causes will have to be carefully enquired for and treated. The removal of the chronic catarrhal affection will not cure the noises unless rest be at the same time given to the overwrought brain. In those instances in which causes producing different kinds of noises are present together, the coexistence of the two classes of sound may facilitate the diagnosis, but it will often be found exceedingly difficult to trace the tinnitus to its causes in these complicated cases. Hysteria, hypochondriasis, gout, dyspepsia, obstructed portal circulation, may all give rise to tinnitus, which may, or may not, be accompanied by deafness. Cerebral disease is a very frequent concomitant, if not a cause, of tinnitus; while, on the other hand, the noises in the head have been known to produce aberration of intellect, and even to drive the sufferer to suicide. In the case of insane patients, however, tinnitus must be carefully differentiated from the hallucinations of hearing, to which they are so frequently subject, though both often coexist. With regard to the ultimate cause of the sounds; this is, no doubt, some irritation of the auditory nerve. Dr. Theobald, of Maryland, gives the following as his views on this point. (London Medical Record, March 15, 1876, from Chicago Medical Journal.') He thinks, in the first place, “ that the tinnitus is invariably due to an excitation of the terminal elements, (not the trunk) of the auditory nerve ; and after a careful con- sideration of the facts which seemed to have any bearing on the subject, he has been led to the conclusion that, in almost all cases, tinnitus aurium, whether associated with aural affec- tions, cerebral diseases, or constitutional disorders, is to be attributed to the existence of vibrations excited in the walls of the blood-vessels of the labyrinth by the friction attending the