N A T U U A L II I S T O R Y. 



359 



judice to the functions of the 

 organ. 



Mr. P — , a medical stndent at 

 St. Thomas's Hospital, of the age of 

 twenty years, applied to me, in the 

 winter of 1797, while he Vas 

 attending a course of anatomical 

 lectures, requesting my opinion 

 upoh the nature of a complaint in 

 his ear, which had long rendered 

 him slightly deaf. 



Upon inquiring into the nature 

 of the symptoms which had prece- 

 ded, and of those which now accom- 

 panied the disease, he informed me, 

 that he had been subject from his 

 infancy to pains in the head, and 

 was attacked, at the age of ten 

 years, with an Inflammation and sup- 

 pnration in the left ear, which con- 

 tinued discharging matter for seve- 

 ral weeks : in the space of about 

 twelve months after the first attack, 

 symptoms of a similar kind took 

 place in the right ear, from whicli 

 also matter issued for a considerable 

 time. The discharge in each in- 

 stance was thin, and extremely 

 offensive to the smell ; and, in the 

 matter, bones or pieces of bones 

 were observable. The immediate 

 consequence of these attacks v^'as 

 a total deafness, which continued 

 for three months; the hearing then 

 began to return, and, in about ten 

 months from t)ie last attack, was 

 ' restored to the state in which it 

 at present remains. 



Having thusdescribed the disease 

 and its symptoms, he gave me the 

 following satisfactory proof of eacli 

 mcmbrana /^/zwy^c/w/' being imperfect. 

 Having filled his moutli witli air, 

 he closed the nostrils, and contract- 

 ed his checks : the air, thus com- 

 pressed, was heard to rnsli tlu-ough 

 the meatus audiloriu.i, with a whist- 

 ling noise, and his hair hanging 

 from the temples bccujuc agitated 



by the current of air which issued 

 from the ear. To determine this 

 with greater precision, I called for 

 a lighted candle, which was applied 

 in turn to each ear, and the flame 

 was agitated in a similar manner. — 

 Struck with the novelty of these 

 phaenomena. I wished to have 

 many witnesses of them, and there- 

 fore requested him, at the conclu- 

 sion of the lecture upon the organ 

 of hearing, to exhibit them to his 

 fellow students, with which request 

 he was so obliging as to comply. 



It was evident from these experi- 

 ments, that the meiyihrana (i/mpani 

 of eacli ear was incomplete, and 

 that the air issued from the mouth, 

 by the eustachian tube, through an 

 opening in that membrane, and 

 escaped by the external meatus. 



To determine the degree in 

 which the membrana ti/mpa/ii had 

 been injured, I passed a probe into 

 each ear^ and found that the mem- 

 brane on the left side was entirely 

 destroyed ; since the probe struck 

 against the petrous portion of the 

 temporal bone, at the interior part 

 of the tijvipanum, not by passing 

 through a small opening ; for, after 

 an attentive examination, the space 

 usually occupied by the membrana 

 tijmpani was found to be an aper- 

 ture, without one trace of mem- 

 brane remaining. 



On the right side also, a probe 

 could be passed into the cavity 

 of the tympanum ; but here, by 

 conducting it along the sides 

 of the meatus, some remains 

 of the circumference of the mem- 

 brane could be discovered with 

 a circular opening in its centre, 

 about the fourth of an inch in 

 diameter. 



From such a destruction of this 

 membrane, partial indeed in one 

 car, but complete in the other, it 



