In 1952 and early 1953 when Dr. Samuel Rosen began telling us that he was mobilizing the footplate of the stapes by placing instruments against its neck in patients with otosclerosis—first privately and then publicly—I told him that I was sure that the footplate would reankylose. It was only after seeing an evulsed stapes, reported by Professor Zollner in 1954, it occurred to me that in stapes mobilization the modus operandi was by fracture of the normal portion of the footplate rather than by lysis of the stapediovestibular joint. It was reasoned at first that, since the otosclerotic focus is 9 out of 10 times at the anterior border of the oval window, the ankylosis must also occur there. Accordingly, the anterior crus was cut with various instruments with the idea of severing the ankylosis of the crus (which so commonly occurred in histological material) and at the same time