Deafness in Bright's Disease / by J. Walker Downie.

  • Downie, J. Walker, (James Walker), 1855-1921.
Date:
[1885]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Deafness in Bright's Disease / by J. Walker Downie. 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.

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    Heprintcd from ' The Glasfjoio Medical Journal for December, 1S85.] DEAFNESS IN BRIGHT'S DISEASE. By J. WALKER DOWNIE, M.B., F.P.P..S.G., Lecturer on Diseases of the Ear and Tlu-oat, Western Medical School; Surgeon, Throat Department, Anderson's College Dispensary, &c. Amongst cases of interest, alike to the avii-al specialist and the general physician, which I have been called upon to treat within the last twelve months, was one of deafness in a patient sufFerinof from Brio-ht's disease. I am the more constrained to bring this case before the readers of the Journal, as in referring to works specially bearing on diseases of the kidneys, auditory disturbances I find to be all but unnoticed. On 4th December, 1884, I was requested by a medical friend to see a patient of his. The patient, a warehouseman, aged 27, and married, was suffering from chronic nephritis, and on account of the swelling of his lower extremities had been confined to bed almost constantly during the two previous months. Two days before date he had been seized with sudden deafness, of which the following are the par- ticulars, with subsequent progress:— Before 2nd December his hearing was good. During the night of the 2nd he was prevented from sleeping by a constant and severe pain in the right ear, which, however, did not affect his hearing. To get relief from the pain, patient had a few drops of warmed whisky and laudunum placed in the meatus several times during the night with but slight benefit. In the morning the pain had gone, but he found himself to be completely deaf in the right ear. It was then I saw him for the first time. On testing his hearing power with watch, the tick of which in normal hear- ing is audible at 50 inches, I found hearing on left side normal, while on the affected side the tick was not heard even on firm contact. Examination, with aid of speculum, showed nothing abnormal, and with cai'eful use of Eustachian catlaeter the tympanum was readily inflated, but without improvement in hearing power.