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The development of auralism or audismAt this point we will provide only a brief introduction to these topics. The themes will be developed through the Unit. Hospitals and OtologyEars were recognised as the organ of hearing from the very earliest times. In Egypt in the Ebers Papyrus (1600 BC) priests would have specialist roles in dealing with ailments of the ears. Most of this involved putting compounds or solutions into the ears eg goat’s urine, mixed with various ashes such as bat’s wing, ant eggs or lizards was used to stop discharging ears. Hippocrates in 400 BC thought that discharges in the ear were caused by fluids built up in the brain which drained through the ear. Celsus, a Roman in the first century BC, thought that otititis media could cause insanity and he prescribed the use of vinegar instilled into the ear to kill insects before removing from the external canal. Main developments in this came in Italy in the 16th century, Fallopius discovered the cochlea. Eustacius discovered the tube which has the connections in the inner ear. But it was not until the 18th century that the first surgery was begun. The developments were slow and only in the 19th century was it discovered that the ear was also involved in balance. Toynbee was a very famous otologist who recorded all the bones of the ear but died at an early age while attempting to relieve his tinnitus by self-administration of chloroform. Weber in 1825 developed the testing of hearing by the use of tuning forks.
The first attempts to develop hearing aids were made in the latter part of the 19th century. The most effective was developed in the USA. The Ewings from Manchester were very important in the assessment of deaf children and their work in the 1930’s brought them great fame. The first real provision of hearing aids was in the period just after the Second War. It was only in this century therefore that the development of audiology has progressed. Deaf children were only separated from partially hearing children through the work of the Ewings and their ideas had a profound impact on education. Because of the prominence of medical authorities in all of education, their decisions and proposals created a view that deaf children were children with problems in hearing and they focused the attention of teachers and parents on the hearing loss. |
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