IN A PAPER read before the combined meeting of the sections on otolaryngology of the New York Academy of Medicine and the Philadelphia College of Physicians, March 20, 1940, one of us (J. L.).1 stated:
It has been known and observed for very many years that when a fistula is made in the vestibular portion of the bony capsule of the labyrinth in an otosclerotic ear, before cochlear nerve degeneration has taken place in the conversational frequencies, there occurs an immediate improvement of hearing for air-borne sound of the highest obtainable degree in that patient. Most otologists who observed this phenomenon, and some who occupied themselves with the development of the surgery for otosclerosis, have always believed that the improvement of hearing resulting from such a fistula was the direct result of the decompression of a supposedly existing, but never proven, increased intralabyrinthine fluid pressure. Despite their observation that