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Phineas Fletcher and The Purple Island

The Reverend Phineas Fletcher was a 17th century poet whose epic poem, The Purple Island describes the anatomy of the human body. Not only poets, but contemporary anatomists believed in two important concepts, correspondences and signatures. They thought that when...

Vicarious (nasal) menstruation

Hippocrates himself is known to have said that when a woman’s menses are due, but instead of the usual vaginal menstrual flow, she has a haemorrhage from the nose, then this is a sure sign of pregnancy [1]. Artist’s impression...

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...

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...

Cochlear implantation for single-sided deafness and asymmetric hearing loss

Continuing our sub-theme of cochlear implantation candidacy, Richard Irving and Raghu Kumar review the principles and benefits of cochlear implantation in individuals who have an asymmetric hearing loss. It is well known that cochlear implantation improves auditory capacity, and in...