On throat deafness : and the pathological connections of the throat, nose, and ear / by James Yearsley.

  • James Yearsley
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On throat deafness : and the pathological connections of the throat, nose, and ear / by James Yearsley. 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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    the throat disorder precedes the affection of the ear. Occasionally we find from exposure to cold, &c, the ear is the first part affected, the catarrhal symptoms subsequently extending to the throat; but these cases bear a very small proportion to the cases in which the throat disorder is the primary affection. Besides the illustration which may thus be taken from the progress of disease, of the great dependence of ear disease on throat disorder, another series of proofs can be taken from the treatment of aural affec- tions. From the earliest periods of medical practice, gargles have been used as remedies against deafness. These applications have for the most part been com- posed of astringent or stimulant substances. The actual cautery, the potassa fusa, and the nitrate of silver, are more recent applications. None of these agents can act upon the ear directly; they must of necessity produce their effects by improving the con- dition of the throat, and by benefiting the hearing in a secondary manner. That they are capable of im- proving the state of the ear, no observant aural practi- tioner can for a moment doubt. In my operations for the removal of enlarged tonsils, I have seen in very many cases the hearing restored in which no obstruc- tion to the Eustachian tubes could be supposed, but where the improvement of the hearing could be ex- plained in no other way than by supposing it to depend on an improvement caused in the mucous membrane of the throat, which in its turn improved the state of the membrane within the ears. Guided by a sound and wholesome experience, I have not hesitated, in certain cases of deafness, to remove the uvula, that is, in cases where great irritability of the throat existed, and where
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