Surgical Treatment of Deafness

ROBERT CAMPBELL, in honour of whose nmemory this lecture is held, was one of the great pioneers of aseptic surgery. He was the first surgeon to use rubber gloves in the British Isles, and he was responsible for many advances in our craft. He had a particular interest in the surgery of repair, and his appointment at the Children's Hospital gave him nmany opportunities to restore by means of reparative surgery young people to an active, happy, and full life. His labours ended all too soon in 1920 at the early age of 55, but had he been spared, I am sure that he would have rejoiced at the remarkable advances which have been niu.ide in recent years in the surgical management of disorders which in his time were regarded as incurable. Deafness was one of these. Tonight I have been honoured with the task of telling you something of the reallv remarkable advances which have been made in recent years in the restoration, l)y means of delicate surgical operations, of the sense of hearing which had been dulled by otosclerosis or by the ravages of middle ear suppuration. I must tell you at once that we cannot as yet offer surgical help to those whose dea-fness is due to a defective nerve or end organ of hearing; but when deafness is the result of impaired transmission of sound across the middle ear, it is often possible by refashioning the sound conducting systenm to enable sounds of normal or near normal intensity to be conducted to a responsive nerve of hearing inside the internal ear. Robert Campbell would have been one of the first to encourage the application of simple surgical principles to the ear, which has resulted in so much benefit to so many. At the same time it has raised the art of aural surgery from the messy business of letting out pus and removing infected bone to the more elegant level of aseptic surgery in a clean field. THE ULSTER MEDICAL JOURNAL