Word: eardrum
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...some degree of hearing loss. Many are older people whose deafness is caused by progressive nerve damage, which can often be corrected by artificial hearing aids. But a significant number are younger people whose impairment is triggered by disease or injury to the tympanum and ossicles (see diagram), the eardrum and tiny vibrating bones that transmit sound waves to the inner...
Until recently, surgeons had only one method of correcting damage to the eardrum-repair of the tympanum with tissue usually taken from the fibrous lining of the ear muscle. This operation sometimes thickened the eardrum and thus produced only questionable improvements in hearing efficiency. Now surgeons are perfecting a technique for replacing damaged eardrums and ossicles with healthy donor tissue. The operation offers some new hope for an escape from hearing impairment...
...years, doctors who tried eardrum transplants were hampered by their inability to preserve a donor's tissue until it was needed. One solution to their problem was developed by Dr. Rodney Perkins, of Palo Alto, Calif., who tried the buffered formaldehyde solution that has proved successful in the preservation of heart valves. The formaldehyde not only preserves the eardrum and helps retain its shape, but may even improve its tensile strength as well. As a result, doctors can now obtain healthy eardrums and ossicles from deceased donors and store them in an eardrum bank for up to seven months...
...Paul Garnreiter, the seven-year-old boy who regained his hearing at the August service in Los Angeles, had suffered a proteus infection in his left ear for four years. A mastoidectomy two years ago showed a severely deteriorated eardrum. Last week Paul's physician could find no evidence of damage...
...seat and back. After being strapped into the chair, the victim is subjected to electric shocks in graduated amounts, usually until he confesses or-passes out. Another technique is "the telephone," in which the torturer continuously slaps the prisoner on the ear with a cupped hand, often rupturing the eardrum. A failed dental student, now a Rio policeman, has refined still another technique. The "mad dentist," as he is known, straps a prisoner into his dentist's chair, drills until he hits a nerve and keeps probing until the victim agrees to cooperate. Then he fills the cavity, leaving...