FISHES AND FISHING. 87 



devilries, not only perfectly useless, but highly inju- 

 rious, and too often fatal. 



Two new aspirants for fame, as aural surgeons, have 

 appeared ; and to attain that object, have made up 

 large books on the ear. I have looked them over, 

 and find nothing new to afford the slightest satis- 

 faction for the trouble. But I do find useful matters, 

 of which I was the inventor, and I published more 

 than forty , years ago, now appropriated without 

 stating from whence the parties borrowed the idea. 

 The first of these book-manufacturers assumes a dic- 

 tatorial, self-sufficient, tone in his compilation ; the 

 other is all silky, prolix plausibility, endeavouring 

 to prove that although the whole mechanism of an 

 ear may be destroyed, and even speech be lost, the 

 dropping into the ears of a solution of sulphate of 

 copper, and rubbing nitrate of silver (lunar caustic) 

 on the protuberant bone behind the ears, restored 

 hearing and speech ? Credulous indeed must any 

 person be to believe such a statement ! The same 

 author, in a case wherein the membrane, vulgarly 

 called the drum, was destroyed, advised a very small 

 wire shirt button to be introduced, with a pin through 

 it to serve as a stalk or handle ! Surely the author 

 cannot be serious, but has written this to ridicule 

 Mr. Toynbee's artificial membrana tympani. The 

 methods of treatment of both these authors are such 

 as I have stigmatized. 



