314 On the late efforts in France and other parts of Europe 



it is equally evident, that the hearing of some of his patients was 

 somewhat improved, although probably in most of the cases, the 

 cure was merely temporary. The fact that he has abandoned the 

 use of the instrument he invented, and that in his later writings 

 scarcely any mention is made of the operation itself, more conclu- 

 sively proves its inutility, and the little success with which it was 

 actually attended, than any arguments which others could possibly 

 advance. 



At the institution for the deaf and dumb at Groningen in Hol- 

 land, the operation was performed by the celebrated Professor Hen- 

 drisksz and Dr. C. Guyot on eighty one individuals. Of these 

 eighty one, there were only seventeen, whose hearing seemed to be 

 in the least improved ; and even of these, fourteen, before the expi- 

 ration of nine months, relapsed into their original state of deafness. 

 The remaining three preserved their artificial hearing, but not to 

 such an extent, as to be of any use to them in the acquisition of lan- 

 guage.* 



The results, then, of the operation of perforating the tympanum, — 

 an operation which has been performed in a great number of ca- 

 ses, and by a large number of skillful surgeons, have been such, 

 that no rational hopes can be founded upon it, as a means of resto- 

 ring the deaf and dumb to hearing and the use of speech. Dr. 

 Wright, an English surgeon, who has written a very candid work 

 on deafness and its remedies,! strongly objects to the practice. He 

 affirms that atmospheric air, which passes through the membrane of 

 the tympanum, does not become regulated in temperature, as it does 

 when passing naturally through the Eustachian tube ; that by per- 

 forating the tympanum, the painful sensibility of hearing, which at 

 first takes place, is shortly followed by a partial or total obliteration 

 of the faculty, occasioned by the unnatural and immediate vibration 

 of sound, striking upon the fine membrane and producing an excess- 

 ive degree of tension ; and that atmospheric air, in its passage through 

 the Eustachian tube, probably undergoes certain physical changes, 

 which it cannot do, when entering the cavity through the membrane 

 of the tympanum. 



♦ Deuxiime circulaire de I'lnstitut royal des sourds-muets de Paris, etc. Pa- 

 ris, 18-29. 

 t An. essay on the human ear. London, 1817. 



