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The fatal illness of Frederick the Noble

Sir Morell Mackenzie is acknowledged as the ‘Father of British Otolaryngology’. He was the leading throat specialist of his time and one of the founders of the Journal of Laryngology and Otology in 1887. He studied in Paris, Vienna and...

A ‘rye’ tail – the fatal illness of Lord Boringdon, a Regency tragedy

The anonymous privately-printed book, Some Account of Lord Boringdon’s Accident, describes in deferential terms a case of aspiration of a foreign body and its sequelae. Today aspirated foreign bodies are serious but curable injuries; before the invention of the bronchoscope...

The Dilemma of Beethoven’s Deafness

Beethoven was one of the world’s greatest musicians, and his deafness is well known. Many details of his medical conditions are known, and various theories of his hearing loss have been proposed. Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770 in...

Did you ever meet Draffin on your travels?

Draffin’s rods or bipods are a well-known ENT instrument. Before their invention in 1951, the attendant anaesthetist or nurse was obliged to support the mouthgag during tonsillectomy. Their originator, David Alexander Draffin (born in 1917 in Ballybey, Co Monaghan), was...

The first compact auriscope: the 1865 speculum auris of Dr Brunton

Bringing light into darkness can also be a task for the physician. With the advent of endoscopy (initially by reflecting light into body cavities), new methods of diagnosis and treatment became available to the otologist. In 1865, the Scotsman John...

The pong of poverty: George Orwell on the problem of olfactory classism

Throughout his fiction and non-fiction, George Orwell incorporated references to olfaction to invoke strong reactions in his readers. For example, in Nineteen Eighty-Four the protagonist Winston describes “the pleasant smell of [Julia’s] hair”. Orwell emphasises the invasiveness and emotional force...

2020 Lancet Commission on dementia: a call to action for integrated hearing healthcare

Dr Georgiou’s summary of the 2020 update to the 2017 Lancet Commission underscores the importance of medical and hearing healthcare professionals working together to tackle the modifiable risk factors that affect individuals throughout their lives, to help delay or even...

Taking life by the throat

Patients suffering with problems with their voice, airway and/or swallowing can find their symptoms immensely distressing, and their care places a huge burden on healthcare systems. We hear from a world-leading laryngologist on current and future directions. Field of interest...

Olfaction in CRS

Conventional teaching tells us that hyposmia in chronic rhinosinusitis is due to mechanical obstruction of the olfactory cleft. But it might be that the story is slightly more complicated than that. Olfactory dysfunction is a common feature of chronic rhinosinusitis...

Out of Africa: Audiovannah audiology clinic in Zimbabwe

Audiovannah reception area. In 2015 two Danish audiologists, Jenny Pedersen and Nicolai Pedersen, relocated to Zimbabwe and opened a full service audiology clinic (Audiovannah) in the capital city of Harare. The focus has been to give back as much as...