Even in our own time, in the
light of advanced medical science, such a condition is serious and is
not always amenable to treatment, some impairment of the hearing
frequently occurring even with the best of care and under conditions
precluding the thought of a congenital tendency. The difficulty as
revealed by the post-mortem, lay in a thickening of the membrane of the
Eustachian tubes. The office of these tubes is to supply air to the
cavity on the inner side of the drum-membrane, known as the middle ear.
As is well known, a passage exists from the outer ear to the drum. The
Eustachian tubes connect the middle ear with the upper portion of the
throat from whence the air supply to the middle ear is obtained. We
cannot imagine a drum to be such unless there is air on both sides of
the membrane. Exhaust the air of an ordinary drum, and its resonance
would be gone. A similar condition obtained with Beethoven. With the
closure of the Eustachian tubes the air supply to the middle ear was cut
off; the air in the cavity finally became absorbed, and a retraction and
thickening of the drum-membrane with consequent inability to transmit
sound vibrations followed.
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