FLUID pressure applied to the endolymphatic duct causes sudden severe cochlear damage, probably membrane ruptures, but no behavioral vestibular disturbance. Recovery (healing) can take place, usually over a period of at least several days.
These observations resulted from a series of experiments on cats—one of several species whose endolymphatic sacs and ducts have successfully withstood all attempts to find their function. The major obstacle for any theory is still the fact that no functional or anatomical defect results when the duct is occluded or destroyed.1-3 Yet in spite of the duct's seeming uselessness, nature has insisted upon including one in each of its many vestibulo-auditory systems since the first vertebrate.
In man, Portmann,4 then later House,5 and Femenic6 incised the sac, seeking thereby to control the symptoms in Meniere's syndrome, symptoms presumed to be caused by unequal endolymphatic and perilymphatic pressures. Their successful results in selected