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The (Ancient Egyptian) ear that hears badly: otology in Ancient Egypt 1500 BC

The Ebers Papyrus was written around 1500 years before the birth of Christ, and is arguably the most complete and most beautiful of the medical texts to have survived from ancient Egypt. It was purchased from a Coptic antiquarian in...

Misophonia: an audiologist’s perspective on recent research and assessment

From validated assessment tools to new insights into neural processing, recent research is redefining the audiologist’s role in understanding misophonia. Misophonia – literally “hatred of sound” – is a condition marked by disproportionate emotional and physiological reactions to specific trigger...

Hubert Struycken and his monochord: when otologists still played the violin

It is almost impossible to imagine audiometry today without electronic tone generators, digital electronics or computers. At the beginning of the last century, however, the otologist relied on much simpler tools: a pocket watch, a tuning fork, or a Galton...

The pioneer of precision: Wolfgang Steiner and the evolution of transoral laser surgery

It is rare that a single clinician entirely changes the course of the management of a particular condition. Steiner was one such clinician. Wolfgang Steiner was to transoral laser microsurgery what Grandmaster Flash was to hip-hop or James Brown was...

Early Egyptian medicine: nasal trauma and surgery in the Edwin Smith Papyrus

In ancient Egypt, with its towering pyramids and bustling cityscapes along the Nile, there existed a deep-rooted civilisation that excelled in more than the grandeur of monumental architecture. Frequent wars and battles shaped Egyptian society, not only defining its political...

From battlefield to homefront: how the First World War shifted perceptions of deafness

The First World War marked a pivotal moment in the understanding and treatment of hearing loss and deafness. Prior to the war, deafness had been largely attributed to congenital causes. This view was influenced by a negative eugenic Darwinist ideology...