Manual of diseases of the ear : including those of the nose and throat in relation to the ear : for the use of students and practitioners of medicine / by Thomas Barr and J. Stoddart Barr.

  • Barr, Thomas, 1846-1916
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Manual of diseases of the ear : including those of the nose and throat in relation to the ear : for the use of students and practitioners of medicine / by Thomas Barr and J. Stoddart Barr. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    475/528 (page 431)
    xx.] GENERAL TREATMENT OF SUBJECTIVE SOU through a resonator fixed into the orifice of the ear. The duration of the application may extend from one minute to five minutes, and, in order to ensure a continuous sound, the tuning-fork may be connected with a magneto-electric apparatus. The writer has often found from this method of treatment a tem- porary diminution or even disappearance of the sound, the respite varying from five minutes to several hours. He has not yet found a case in which a permanent effect was produced. Pilocarpine, applied hypodermically, is useful in a limited number of cases, especially, as Politzer first pointed out, in recent exudation into the cavities of the labyrinth (see p. 423). Its action is probably due to its stimulating effect on the absorbents in contact with the effused products before these have become organized. This resorbent effect has probably some connection with its remarkable powers of exciting the cutaneous and salivary secretion. Operations on the labyrinth and division of the auditory nerve at the internal auditory meatus have been carried out for the relief of this symptom (see p. 426). General Treatment of Subjective Sounds. In the treatment of the persistent forms of subjective sounds in the ear, the state of the whole body should come under review, and appropriate medicinal, hygienic, or dietetic treatment should be employed to rectify, if possible, any departure from the healthy condition. The use of cathartics or mercurial preparations is in some cases very efficacious in giving relief, for a time at least, to the patient’s distress. Some patients say that after a dose of Gregory’s mixture, or a blue pill, followed by a saline, they enjoy a day or two’s respite from the noises. If the hepatic functions are disturbed, and a torpid state of the bowels exists, a course of aperient waters, especially Carlsbad, or its salts in the finely powdered form, with an occasional mercurial, may tem- porarily relieve, if not altogether remove, the tinnitus. In anaemia or neurasthenia appropriate remedies should be employed (see General Formula:). The patient should be enjoined, to withdraw his mind from the sounds and to ignore them as much as iiossiblc. He should also be assured that they do not mean anything wrong with.the brain, nor involve danger to life. Many patients aggravate matters very much and worry themselves greatly by dwelling upon imaginary dangers and constantly directing their minds to the sounds. Even when cure cannot be promised, the patient should be encouraged to expect gradual mitigation as time goes on. The student is referred further to Formulae Nos. 128 to 135.