Notes on the functional examination of the ear by means of the voice / by Duncan Matheson Mackay.

  • Mackay, Duncan Matheson.
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Notes on the functional examination of the ear by means of the voice / by Duncan Matheson Mackay. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Rcurintcd from The Medical Press and Circular, September SOth., WO,'). JElOTES ON THE FUNCTIONAL EXAMINATION OF THE EAR BY MEANS OF THE VOICE. By DUNCAN MATHESON MACKAY, M.D., Senior Clinical Assistant, Hospital for Diseases of the Throat, Golden Square ; late House Surgeon, Liverpool Eye and Ear Infirmary; and Brighton, Hove, and Sussex Throat and Ear Hospital. There are several difficulties which prevent the regular use of the human voice in the testing of the hearing of aural patients. One of the least, perhaps— but certainly one—is the slowness with which suitable words suggest themselves to the surgeon when he has his patient sitting in a quiet room, prepared to repeat the words he hears. It is not satisfactory to propose as tests the first words which occur to the mind, because some common words are easily recognised, whilst others are recog- nised only with difficulty. The different vowels and consonants of which words are made up vary so much in their perceptibility to the organ of hearing, that unless some arrangement be observed, it is not possible to obtain any clear idea of the hearing in the case under examination, and equally impossible to tabulate and compare the results arrived at. For example, a relatively deaf man may hear the word -- sash ” quite well, while another man, not so deaf in reality, may fail to hear the word “ rule ” (both men being tested at the same distance from the exa- miner, and under the same conditions) ; for -- sash ” is one of the easiest words to recognise, while “rule ’* is one of the most difficult.