The nature and treatment of diseases of the ear / by William Kramer.

  • Wilhelm Kramer
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nature and treatment of diseases of the ear / by William Kramer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    which galbanum, myrrh, turpentine, alum, opium, &c. are mixed together, and all applied together to maladies of the ear of every kind. Even the etiological distinctions estab- lished by himself disappear altogether in his treatment. Were the pains in the ear caused by cold? he allows garlic, onions, euphorbium, savine boiled in oil, and very finely powdered pepper to be introduced into the ear: were they the result of inflammation of the surrounding integuments? then nard ointment, opium, castor, and frankincense were to be introduced into the ear; black and white hellebore, cinnamon, cassia, bryony, and arum, &c. he prescribed if the otalgia were produced by viscid, sanious secretions in the meatus. Ulceration of the ear he cured with crocus petals, myrrh, chelidonium glaucinum, and iron filings boiled in vinegar, besides making use of the above-mentioned compositions. Singing in the ears he explained sometimes as ‘ spiritus flatuosi,” sometimes as an ‘‘ exquisita sensus audiendi sensi- bilitas,” and treats it accordingly, either with “‘ medicamentis discussoriis et incidentibus,’ or with ‘‘ stupefacientibus ;” that is to say, always with the various topical, irritating, stimulating remedies already mentioned,—opium, castor, nitrum, alum, &c. For dulnesgs of hearing he recommends every sort of fomentation, drops consisting of white vinegar with nitrum, onion-juice, ox-gall, nut-oil, alum boiled in vinegar, myrrh, &e.; so that it must be confessed that in Galen’s time acoustic medicine had retrograded considerably; for the directions distinctly given by Celsus for the individualisation of diseases of the ear, were evidently lost sight of. For more than a thousand years, these crude empirical principles of Galen maintained undiminished and entire authority. The inestimable anatomical discoveries respect- ing the ear, that were made towards the end of the fifteenth and in the first half of the sixteenth century, by Achillini, Berengar, Vesalius, Ingrassius, Eustachius, Fallopius, Casse- rius, and others, had not the least influence on the patholo-
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