Browse Items (51 total)

Dr. Pappas explains that Sir William Wilde (1815-1876) was one of the first to use a tubular speculum to examine the ear, and that his was cone-shaped. Shown here is an ear speculum with a handle and a light.

Shown here is an example of a tubular ear speculum of the sort introduced by Sir William Wilde. Click here to view a 3D model of this instrument from the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences.

Dr. Pappas explains that Sir William Wilde (1815-1876) was one of the first to use a tubular speculum to examine the ear, and that his was cone-shaped. Shown here are various examples of such specula from the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences.

Dr. Pappas explains how Jean Louis Petit (1674-1750) used a curette during the first successful operation for mastoiditis.

This hearing aid is similar to those introduced by Le Cat and Itard which mimic the structure of the inner ear.

This slide of the ear anatomy shows structures relevant to the otological comparison of Vesalius and Eustachius, including the Eustachian tube, which Vesalius hardly mentioned but Eustachius described perfectly, resulting in the associated eponym. A…

Jean Marc Gaspard Itard did not have formal medical training; he faked being a medical man to avoid the army and was assigned to a military hospital. But he mastered his new profession and showed remarkable abilities in the fields of otology, …

Jean-Louis Petit (1674-1750) performed the first successful operations for mastoiditis. His works were published in three small volumes 25 years after his death, and provided an overview of French surgery and every instrument used in the 18th…

In this 1809 work, John Cheyne described the histological pathology of croup.

Jacob Henle (1809-1885) gave a detailed and complete description of the temporal bone and was the first to describe the suprameatal spine, though he did not show the structure as a landmark to the antrum. Henle's name was attached to it later by…

John Cunningham Saunders (1773-1810) was an assistant to Cooper in the myringotomy study. In this work, Saunders said observed that the most common indication for doing a myringotomy is an acute otitis medium, or acute inflammation of the middle ear.…

Published nearly 150 years after Eustachius' death, Lancisius tracked down the 39 anatomical plates from the descendants of Pier Matteo Pini, Eustachius' assistant. The plates were probably drawn by Eustachius himself, or Pini.

Eustachius'…

Sir William Macewan (1848-1924) was among the earliest surgeons to attach otitis abscesses through the ear. He learned from his teacher, Joseph Lister, to discard those aesthetic handle instruments made of ivory, ebony, bone and tortoise because they…

Turck's "Practical introduction to laryngoscopy" was published the same year, but after Czermak's work, despite his argument for priority in the field of laryngoscopy for having originated use of, and having introduced Czermak to the laryngeal…

Horace Green describes his innovative use of the probang to apply topical medicines to the larynx in the treatment of laryngeal diseases.

In his "The theory of hearing: supplement to the article on the treatise on sense," Claude-Nicolas Le Cat introduces the hearing horns he invented for hearing aids, which mimic the shape of the inner ear.

The accomplished English surgeon, Sir Astley Paston Cooper (1768-1841), noticed clinically that a hole in the tympanic membrane did not necessarily cause deafness, and that an incision in the anterior-inferior portion of the tympanic membrane could…

Semeleder's work, "Rhinoscopy and its worth for physician practice: a monographic trial," introduced rhinoscopy to the medical field.

In this landmark book in the history of throat diseases from 1826, Pierre Bretonneau identified and named diphtheria.

This book by Czermak introduced the laryngoscope, shortly preceded Turck's work on the topic and added fuel to the vicious priority dispute. In English the title means, “On the laryngoscope and its employment in physiology and medicine.”