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A brief history of adenoidectomy - a glowing report of the post nasal space

The traditional adenoid curette more closely resembles a medieval torture device than an instrument of cure. Therefore it is not much of a surprise to learn that it has changed little since its invention almost 150 years ago. During that...

The death of Attila the Hun, a 70s film and Japanese cartoons

The 6th century Gothic monk, Jordanes, tells us that Attila the Hun, the notorious and allegedly merciless barbarian (who was a prime mover in the fall of the Roman Empire), died of a nosebleed on his wedding night in 453...

Guillotines from Joseph‑Ignace Guillotin to Greenfield Sluder

Joseph‑Ignace Guillotin. The politician and physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814) was so disgusted by brutal head and shoulder injuries sustained in ‘failed attempts’ by drunken axe-wielding executioners during the French Revolution that he and surgeon Antoine Louis (1723-1792) advocated not only...

Down with the nose, down with it flat

In Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, Timon urges prostitutes to spread syphilis throughout Athens. He implores the whores, Phrynia and Timandra, to: Consumptions* sow In hollow bones of man; strike their sharp shins,And mar men’s spurring*. Crack the lawyer’s voice**, That...

The artificial eardrum: how an eggshell membrane fed a German ENT family

In the pre-antibiotic era, purulent otitis media often resulted in a permanent eardrum perforation with hearing loss. In addition to pig or fish bladders, eggshell membranes and cigarette paper were used as eardrum prostheses. I have vivid personal boyhood memories...

The Indian method: Sushruta’s influence on modern nasal reconstruction

Ancient Indian medicine, as documented in the Sushruta Samhita, contains one of the earliest known references to nasal reconstruction, including surgical techniques still resembling modern practices. (The Sanskrit word ‘Samhita’ is used to define a collection of written work, similar...

Developing an Innovation for ENT – from Idea to Market: how ‘e-i’ did it

Background endoscope-i (e-i) Ltd was incorporated into Companies House on December 3rd, 2012 following eight months of developing our first project, a simple iPhone adapter for endoscopes. Of the three founding shareholders, two are ENT surgeons and one a lecturer...

Migration and training: a British-Nigerian surgeon’s perspective

Less than 4% of doctors on the UK’s medical register describe their ethnicity as African or part African, yet there are myriad driving forces behind the migration of medical trainees from Africa to the UK and other developed countries. Ekpemi...

‘The Sun does not forget a village just because it is too small’ – African proverb

Solar powered hearing aids In the middle of the morning of January 24, 2002, I had been in Otse for only three days, a village of 3500 in the south of Botswana, when I heard a knock at the door....