Astley Cooper’s dramatically effective treatment of deafness

In 1800 the British surgeon Astley Cooper read a paper before the Royal Society reporting his observations on the effects of rupture of the ear drum (tympanic membrane) caused by disease (Cooper 1800). The first patient was a medical student from St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School whose ‘party trick’ – performed in front of his medical school class at the behest of Astley Cooper – was an ability to blow air out of his ears in such a way as to agitate ‘the hair hanging from his temples’. The compliant student, undoubtedly mindful of his future prospects, allowed Astley Cooper to poke a probe in each ear to feel for the ear drum. This made clear that that he had no ear drum at all on one side and a sizeable perforation on the other. Despite this, he could hear his anatomy lecturers (although he preferred to sit near the front of the lecture room), and he ‘played well on the flute’