An Acoustic Probe.

Abstract

The writers first described the bone activating telephone receiver in this journal. The apparatus was used in studying the problem of the minimum audition for bone transmitted sound in normal and pathological cases. The results of these researches have appeared from time to time in the Annals of Otology, the Laryngoscope and the Archives of Octololaryngology. Attention has already been attracted in various papers to the fact that not until the character of the physical disability in the sound transmission apparatus has been established may we hope to arrive at a proper operative solution for the amelioration of some types of deafness. The acoustic probe is nothing more than a miniature bone activating receiver provided with a long slender stalk which is to be used as a probe. When the appliance is hooked up with an electric adiometer the minimum acuity for bone transmitted sound may be determined when the tip of the probe is applied to the handle of the malleus, the long process of the incus and the stapes. This necessarily must be done with reflected drum membrane and under light local anesthesia. It is hoped that in selected cases this method of “feeling one's way” along the sound transmission system will show where a blocking of the drum membrane vibration takes place. Once a mechanical lesion is determined and'rocated, operative correction of the disability may be anticipated. The probe is also to be employed in determining the location of the “hot spot” found in individuals who in the absence of drum membrane and outer ossicles find the cotton plug prothesis of great benefit to air acuity.