Article
Malformations of the inner ear 1837 and today - a historical revue
Search Medline for
Authors
Published: | September 22, 2005 |
---|
Outline
Text
From the 20´s to the 40´s of the 19.th century there were a lot of medical publications. In this time we can also find the first otological papers.
Astonishingly in the 19.th century there are varied clinical and anatomical descriptions about malformations of inner ear structures. So Carl Gustav Lincke described 37 malformations of the inner ear in his book “Handbuch der theoretischen und praktischen Ohrenheilkunde”, published 1837 in Leipzig, Germany.
Up to then the literature (32 sources) described 28 patients with deafness which reason is only a inner ear malformation.
Graphical descriptions of these pathologies are rare. But today we know, that Corti described the anatomical microstructur of the Basilarmembrane of the Cochlea first in 1851. That means, that pictures, describing these special inner ear structures in the time before Corti, don´t show deformities. This pictures reflect the knowledge of this time.
In the present paper inner ear malformations in the otological literature of the 19.th century are analysed and compared with the current knowledge, especially with modern HRCT and MRI scans and morphological descriptions.
It´s fascinating that these 150 years old descriptions of this illness are casting in his mainpoints up to now.