The Anatomy and physiology of the organ of hearing : with remarks on congenital deafness, the diseases of the ear, some imperfections of the organ of speech, and the proper treatment of these several affections / By David Tod.

  • Tod, David.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Anatomy and physiology of the organ of hearing : with remarks on congenital deafness, the diseases of the ear, some imperfections of the organ of speech, and the proper treatment of these several affections / By David Tod. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    the power of communicating effects capable of exciting a sensation ? That such a sensation can be perfect^ no one will for a moment suppose; but limited or imperfect as it may be^ it clearly demonstrates that the peculiar phaeno- mena of hearing can be excited without the presence of an apparatus complete in all its parts^ and that the acute- ness of the sense may probably be increased by certain remedies of a mechanical nature. In this idea we are con- firmed, when we consider the relief derived from the mere introduction of a little lint into the Meatus Externus, in those cases where the Membrana Tympani has been rup- tured or destroyed by violence or disease. So great in- deed is the improvement which takes place from the ap- plication of this simple remedy, that patients will fre- quently appear astonished on being so suddenly and so easily relieved. If we admit that the application of an external agent to the susceptible surface of a locomotive machine, can put it in motion, and that this motion, on being conveyed to the sentient part of the organ, can produce the function required,—ought we not to endeavour to establish the link which connects the external with the internal agent, when that link is absent ? I am aware that the introduc- tion of any kind of locomotive machinery into the Ca- vitas Tympani, in lieu of the natural, is not only a novel idea, but one of extreme difficulty to make efficient; and which, in the absence of experience, will, perhaps, appear to be visionary as well as impracticable. But we have only to consider the oeconomy of the eye, and view it in connexion with the telescope, to be convinced of the feasi- bleness of such an apparatus, and of the possibility of in- troducing it into the cavity in question. With the aid of a glass, the eye is made to see objects at a distance far be- yond the common range of its operations : and when the relative dependence of its different textures is destroyed by the extraction of the crystalline lens, the organ is again rendered subservient to the intentions of nature by a mechanical remedy. But perhaps it will be said that