Deafness and Its Alleviation

The operation that Mr. Vincent Nesfield now describes for the alleviation of chronic deafness does not give us the thrill of a novelty. It was advocated by Aristide Malherbe as many as 29 or 30 years ago, and then quickly was lost sight of until its present resuscitation. Briefly the operation is one in which a new communication is made from the outside through the mastoid cortex posterior to the tympanum to the antrum. It would appear that the special indication for the operation is Eustachian obstruction, but Mr. Nesfield has also performed it with success in cases of oto-sclerosis. Mr. Nesfield has operated on over 300 cases. Of this vast number, the results of only 11 cases are given and one is left in complete ignorance of what happened to the remaining 289 patients. The results of these 11 cases are not in the least bit convincing as Mr. Nesfield has not given any definite clinical picture of the cases before or after treatment, so that one does not know what the functional tests of hearing were before and after. He states that his best and almost miraculous