Hearing 



IN THE AFTERNOON of 29th May, 1956, the stately Senate Chamber 

 of Utrecht University was filled to capacity by a large crowd of friends 

 and relatives who had come to see the degree of Doctor of Medicine 

 being conferred on F. W. Reysenbach de Haan. From the walls, the 

 portraits of famous physicians and surgeons of the past looked down on the 

 candidate, and behind the table sat the present members dressed in sombre 

 black. Everyone must have been puzzled that a thesis entitled De ceti 

 auditu -^On the hearing of Whales' -should have been presented to the 

 faculty of medicine rather than that of science. However, the candidate's 

 sponsor. Prof Dr A. A.J. van Egmond, explained the reason when he told 

 the audience how the research project had originated and what its real 

 purpose was. It had all started years before when the Otological Clinic in 

 Utrecht received the head of a Rorqual foetus for detailed investigation. 

 The staff of the clinic were reluctant to tackle a subject so little connected 

 with man and what is more, smelling so ofTensively. Thus the head of the 

 foetus was left undisturbed in its jar of formalin, until, years later, the new 

 assistant, Reysenbach de Haan, decided to do something about it. At just 

 about that time, a school of Pilot Whales had stranded on a l^each near 

 Esbjerg in Denmark, and by prompt action it was possible to get hold of 

 two fairly fresh heads. Even so, they had begun to smell by the time they 

 arrived, and de Haan's collaborators were none too pleased when he 

 began dissecting them. Not long afterwards, everyone agreed that his 

 investigations, though of little purely medical interest, were nevertheless 

 of tremendous scientific importance. 



The sponsor pointed out that, although famous naturalists, starting 

 with Pliny almost 2,000 years ago, had all speculated about the hearing 

 of Cetaceans, it was not until 1954 that the first reasonable account 

 appeared. This was a reference to Dr F. C. Eraser of the British Museum 

 (Natural History), who together with his colleague, P. E. Purves, had 

 studied the problem for many years and whose preliminary report was 



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