A practical treatise on the diseases of the ear : including the anatomy of the organ / by D.B. St. John Roosa.

  • Roosa, D. B. St. John (Daniel Bennett St. John), 1838-1908.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases of the ear : including the anatomy of the organ / by D.B. St. John Roosa. 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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    also gave a more exact account of the tube leading from the pharynx to the middle ear, which is called the Eustachian tube, although it was discovered by Vesalius. Eustachius also gave a superficial description of the cochlea. It is said that if poverty had not prevented Eustachius from publishing his anatomical plates, anatomy would have attained the perfection of the eighteenth century some two hundred years earlier.* 1587] The first monograph on the anatomy of the ear was from the pen of Volclier Koiter, a student of Fallopius. It contained no original observations, however. 1543-1573] Constant Varolius,f so well known from bis de- scriptions of the brain, made the singular mistake of supposing that the muscles of the cavity of the tympanum were nerves which were torn by the sawing through of the bone. Subsequently he admitted this error ; but he went so far to the other side as to say that the tensor and laxator tym- pani muscles could be moved at will. 1537-1619] LmckeJ does not think that the famous Fabri- cius of Acquapendente, contributed very much to our knowledge of the anatomy of the ear, while he led many away into error as to some points. For example, he thought that the chorda tympani nerve was a peculiar body, and not a nerve. At any rate, Fabricius did good service by his labors as a comparative anatomist, and it should be remem- bered that he was the instructor of the discoverer of the circu- lation of the blood. 1593-1609] Julius Casserius, who was a professor in Venice in 1609, a pupil and subsequently a rival of Fabri- cius, described the fissures that make the cartilaginous por- tion of the canal so flexible. He and Fabricius described the laxator tympani minor in the same year, and both claim to have discovered it first. Casserius also gave a better descrip- tion than had hitherto been done of the membrana tympani, the ossicula auditus, and the labyrinth. He was the first to * Chambers' Encyclopedia. Article, Eustachius. f Biographie Medicale. Paris, Pankoucki. X Handbuch, Bd. I., s. 14.