Auditory System: Clinical and Special Topics (Handbook of Sensory Physiology, 5 / 3)

after heated and often bitter debates, SIEBENMANN'S opinion finally prevailed, i. e. , a contribution to cochlear lesions due to vibrations of the floor transmitted via bone conduction could not be demonstrated. For one thing, it was hard to see how appreciable amounts of energy could reach the ears in this manner, considering the attenuation that is bound to occur across each of the many joints along the pathway involved. In some older audiological surveys conducted in industry (e. g. , TEMKIN, 1933), groups of workmen were found who displayed signs of apical-turn lesions, i. e. , low-tone hearing losses for air and for bone. Such lesions could not be expected to results from exposure to air-borne sounds because of the low-frequency attenu­ ation of the middle ear. Although WITTMAACK'S explanation, which was frequently invoked in such reports, does no longer appear tenable, such apical-turn lesions could conceivably be caused by bone conduction components of high-intensity noise in the sense of BEKESY (1948). - As far as I am aware of, no newer studies have been conducted in this problem area, and the older experiments and/or surveys were done at times before signal parameters could be precisely controlled or measured. A detailed, critical review of the older studies on the potential contribution of bone-conducted energy to industrial hearing loss and its underlying pathology may be found in Werner (1940) who, incidently, favored SIEBENMANN'S point of VIew. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Sensori-Neural Deafness and Derangements of the Loudness Function: their Nature and Clinical Investigation....Pages 1-35 Bone Conduction....Pages 37-84 Electric Response Audiometry, with Special Reference to the Vertex Potentials....Pages 85-103 The Physiological Background of the Electric Response Audiometry....Pages 105-231 Clinical Experiences with Evoked Response Audiometry....Pages 233-277 Hearing and Equilibrium in Renal Failure....Pages 279-306 Community Response to Noise....Pages 307-342 Habituation and Attention in the Auditory System....Pages 343-389 Mathematical Models of the Mechanics of the Inner Ear....Pages 391-415 Electrical Stimulation of the Ear in Man....Pages 417-429 Electrical Stimulation of the Auditory System in Animals....Pages 431-442 Cochlear Mechanics....Pages 443-478 On the “Residue” and Auditory Pitch Perception....Pages 479-583 Infrasound....Pages 585-624 Electrocochleography....Pages 625-705 Drug Ototoxicity....Pages 707-748 Erratum....Pages 815-815 Back Matter....Pages 749-813