Progress in the amelioration of certain forms of deafness and impaired hearing / by J.C. Gordon.

  • Gordon, Joseph Claybaugh, 1842-1903.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Progress in the amelioration of certain forms of deafness and impaired hearing / by J.C. Gordon. 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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    much higher than we commonly imagine. Take this pencil here. If I push the nares up as far as possible, and push diredly back, 1 strike the end of the eustachian tube.] The object of this discussion of middle ear surgery is to impress upon the minds of all that the let alone policy, wisely advised by judicious physicians in the past is not the highest wisdom for the present. The advances made in aural surgery render it imperative to submit every case of deafness to examination from time to time by aural surgeons with reference to the advisability of operative interference either for the improve- ment of the hearing or the health and comfort of the patient. Both auto-massage and massage by mechanical devices for the purpose of improving the hearing, through improved con- dition of the conducing mechanism, due to enforced exercise, have received a great impetus within a few years. Hommell's method is a very interesting one, and it has been practiced with very favorable results in certain cases. Dr. Hom- mell, of Zurich, is a distinguished aurist, who began to lose his hearing a few years ago. He finally hit upon the device named after him, Hommell's method for auto-massage of the conducting mechanism. The operation is a very simple one, and yet it is not advisable to perform it in all cases. He took a finger and pressed upon the tragus, slowly at first, increasing these mo- tions to an operation of one per second for a minute. In some cases the patients will find a peculiar feeling at the end of a min- ute, and become dizzy. It increases the circulation of the blood in those parts, to say nothing of the mechanical movement of the ankylosed bones. And where the adhesion is not very firm, it has a tendency to mobilize the transmitting mechanism. Hom- mell recommended that his method of finger-aftion upon the tra- gus, be kept up, taking sixty movements per minute for, say a week, when the aurist endeavors to increase the speed to 120 movements per minute. To trace the effed of this. Dr. Hom- mell tested the hearing from day to day using the ordinary tests employed by physicians and made a chart of the hearing, if the hearing, for two or three days, is diminishing, instead of in- creasing or holding its own, it is time to stop. But if there is an improvement, this treatment is to be continued. In Dr. Hommell's own case the results were very happy indeed. His hearing increased considerably, and in the case of a number of patients, especially young persons of the ages of eight to fifteen