Inner ear

“ When the drum-head vibrates it moves the bones of the ear, and these carry the vibration to the nerves of hearing in the inner cham [Pg 141] ber. We hear all sounds in the same way, only most sounds come to the ear through the air.
THE INSIDE OF THE EAR.
The snail-shell of the inner part of the ear hears musical sounds. The rest of the inner ear hears ordinary sounds or noises.
7. How to Keep the Ears Healthy.—The ears are very delicate organs and must be carefully treated. ”

“ The consequence is that when a sensation has for its usual condition the presence of an object more or less distant from our bodies, and experience has once made us acquainted with this distance, we shall situate our sensation at this distance.—This, in fact, is the case with sensations of hearing and sight. The peripheral extremity of the acoustic nerve is in the deep-seated chamber of the ear. That of the optic nerve is in the most inner recess of the eye. ”

“ It is kept gently on the stretch by two small muscles, one of which draws it tighter, and the other loosens it, by acting upon a chain of small bones. We shall not undertake to describe the curious and complicated anatomy of the inner ear—the drum, containing air, the curious chain-work of minute vibrating bones, the labyrinth filled with water containing little crystalline particles and fine elastic bristles, and where the delicate fibres of the auditory nerve commence. ”

“ In the inner chamber of the ear physical movements are in some wholly inscrutable manner translated into sensations of sound, and the confused aggregation of waves and ripples in the air, beating against the tympanic membrane there, takes effect in producing impulses which travel up the auditory nerve and expend their energy finally in the creation of sensations of melody and tune, which arouse emotions, revive memories, and stir sometimes the deepest feelings of our minds. ”

“ Many physiognomists pass lightly over the subject of the ears as an index of character, while others seem to specialize on this feature.
The round ear is held to indicate the Vital Temperament. The oblong ear, the Motive Temperament; and the pear-shaped ear the Mental Temperament.
Quality is held to be indicated by the relative delicateness in the moulding of the ear, a coarse, misshapen ear being held to indicate an uncultivated nature; while a delicately moulded, shapely ear is held to indicate culture and refinement. ”

“ Fatigued by long continued action, the senses all alike become for a time, incapable of receiving any further impression. The ear loses its sensibility to sound, the eye to light, the tongue to savours, the pituitary membrane to smells, the touch to the qualities of bodies about which it is conversant, and all this for the sole reason that the respective functions of these different organs, have for a long time been exercised. ”

“ These distinct and active faculties are termed the special senses, and are five in number, viz., Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Hearing. For the exercise of these senses, special organs are furnished, such as the hand, the tongue, the nose, the eye, and the ear. The manner in which the nerves of special sense terminate, varies in the {183}case of each organ, so that each is adapted to one set of sensations alone, and is incapable of perceiving any other. Thus the nerve of hearing is excited by the undulations of sound, and not by those of light, while the reverse is true of the nerve of sight ”

“ Through this sense we are enabled to perceive sounds, that not only subserve to our comfort and pleasure, but are instrumental in promoting our intellectual enjoyments. The organ of hearing, or the ear, is one of the most complicated in the human body. ”

“ Thus the eye is the end-organ of sight, and is a wonderfully complex arrangement of nerve structure combined with refracting media, and arranged to respond to the rapid ether waves of light. The ear has43 for its essential part the specialized endings of the auditory nerve, and is fitted to respond to the waves carried to it in the air, giving the sensation of sound. The end-organs of touch, found in greatest perfection in the finger tips, are of several kinds, all very complicated in structure. ”

“ The Sense of Hearing.—The external ear, although curiously shaped, is not the most important part of the organ whose function it is to take cognizance of sounds. In the transmission of sound to the brain, the vibrations of the air produced by the sonorous body are collected by the external ear, and conducted through the auditory canal to the drum of the ear, which is so arranged that it may be relaxed or tightened like the head of an ordinary drum. ”

“ Let it be stated here that the peculiar role played by the larynx in hearing, already referred to by us in Chapter XVI, is one of the symptoms which tells of the participation of the muscular system in the internal acoustic process.
Psychologically, the difference between ear and eye is that aural perceptions work much more directly on the human will - that is, on the part of our astral organization connected with the limb system. Whereas eye-impressions stimulate us in the first place to think, ear-impressions stimulate us to ... ”

“ EVERY sound is naturally felt as in the Ear, the organ of Hearing. Sound is not naturally felt as resisting or pressing upon the organ, or as in any respect external to, or independent of, the organ. We naturally feel it as an affection of our Ear, as something which is altogether in our Ear, and nowhere but in our Ear, or in the principle of perception which feels in our Ear. We soon learn from experience, indeed, that the sensation is frequently excited by bodies at a considerable distance from us; often at a much greater distance, than those ever are which excite the sensation of Smelling. ”

“ The outer ear collects the vibrations, the middle ear conducts them, and the internal converts them into a special physiological condition of the hair-cells and the auditory nerve. This condition is communicated to the other links in the anatomical hearing chain, until the highest part of the brain, or cortex, is reached. Hearing, from the physiological point of view, is the outcome of a series of processes having their development in a corresponding series of centres, or collections of nerve-cells. ”

“ It is a mistake to suppose that the eye sees all that is impressed on the retina, that the ear catches more than an insignificant share of the innumerable sounds falling ceaselessly on the tympanum, or that the mind interprets many of the marvels that each instant presents to it. ”

“ We know how the ear receives air-vibrations, how it collects and conducts them to the auditory nerves, carefully protecting itself, by the action of beautifully ordered springs and cushions, from the effects of vibrations violent enough to be dangerous to its own integrity. But even [132] when we have followed vibrations as far as the nerve, and recognised the subtle variation of its own substance by which the nerve conducts the impression of them to the brain, we have no inkling of the means by which the phenomenon of consciousness which we call “mind” is produced. ”

“ We are compelled, in spite of scientific knowledge, to direct our attention while practising, to the sensations of the voice, which are the only ones we can become [Pg 95] aware of,—sensations which are confined to the very palpable functions of the organs of breathing, the position of the larynx, of the tongue, and of the palate, and finally, to the sensation of the resonance of the head cavities. The perfect tone results from the combined operations of all these functions, the sensations of which I undertake to explain, and the control of which the ear alone can undertake. ”

“ As there are distinctive earmarks common to all healthy organs, and others common to all unhealthy organs, whatever their particular functions, or whatever the animal, so there are ear-marks common to those neural activities whose function is to continue certain beneficial processes, and contrasting ear-marks for other neural activities whose function is discontinuance. And these traits hold good for all kinds of sense, and for most creatures. ”

“ The nerves of touch, where they end, or rather where they begin in the skin, sometimes have and sometimes have not, little peculiar structures attached to them, little organs of touch. So also the nerves of taste, and smell, end or rather begin in a peculiar way. When we come to the nerves of hearing and of seeing, we find these beginning in most elaborate and complicated organs, the ear and the eye. ”

“ It is evident that the ear must be a very complicated organ; not only must it perceive differences in pitch, as just indicated, but differences in loudness must also register differently. More than that, the ear has to be able to deal with sounds made up of a great many tones coming into it all at once. ”

“ The ear, as being the sense of motion, has scarcely withdrawn itself from the brain, has not yet become a true external organ, and that portion of it which appears externally, is subservient to inferior systems, such as the branchiæ or gills. ”

“ Hearing is finally a psychological or mental condition, a state of consciousness, but is always associated with certain physiological processes, which are initiated by a physical stimulus in the form of waves in a fluid surrounding the hair-cells of the auditory end-organ; which waves may again be traced to the movements of the bones of the middle ear, caused by the swinging to and fro of the drum-head, owing to vibrations of the air produced by a sounding body. ”

“ This incapacity of the ear is the fertile source of many of those false judgments which impress a supernatural character upon sounds that have a fixed locality and a physical origin.—We know of a case, where a sort of hollow musical sound, originating within three or four feet of the ears of two persons in bed, baffled for months every attempt to ascertain its cause. ”

“ From the membrane vibrations pass along the chain of bones, (3, 4, 5.) The bone 5 communicates with the internal ear, (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 11, 11, 12, 12, 12.) From the internal ear the impression is transmitted to the brain by the nerve, (13.)
971. The auditory nerve, like the optic, has but one function, that of special sensibility. The nerves which furnish the ear with ordinary sensibility, proceed from the fifth pair.
HYGIENE OF THE ORGANS OF HEARING.
972. Hearing, like the other senses, is capable of very great improvement. ”

“ The internal ear is formed by an involution of the integument, and not by an outgrowth of the brain. But tissue, in connexion with it, becomes in part changed, thus forming the auditory nerve, which places the tegumentary sac in direct communication with the brain itself. ”

“ This theory explains our ability to analyse compound tones into their simple components.
The ear is, however, more than an organ of hearing. It includes organs, of a very ancient type, which help to regulate our balance in walking, our precision in turning corners or avoiding obstacles, and so on. Each ear, for instance, has three little organs that resemble minute spirit-levels, set in the three planes of space, and that give us the sensation of ‘swimming’ when the head is sharply jerked, and the sensation of dizziness when we twirl on our heels. ”

“ And having found, that the Auditory Nerve was not perished, but that he could hear the sound of a Lute-string, holding one end thereof in his Teeth; and had some perception of any very vehement sound, I supposed the defect to lie in the want of due Tension of the Tympanum of his Ear; whose use I took to be, onely to preserve the Auditory Nerve, and Brain, and inward parts of the Ear from outward injury by cold, Dull, &c and to be no more to Hearing, than glass in the window is in a Room to seeing, i.e. ”

“ The tympanum of the ear yields to the fierce external pressure. The brain feels and multiplies the intolerable tension as if the interior was clamped in a vice, and that tumultuous, thunderous torrent pours on. ”

“ The ear is not placed so exteriorly as the eye, and in which there not being so great an expansion of nerves, will not be possessed of the like degree of sensibility, nor will it be affected by particles more gross, as those which form sounds, and will give us sensations of such distant objects as can put those particles in motion. ”

“ It is wonderful, I mean, how the ear should be so made, that each different sound sets it in motion in a different way: but still more wonderful, how that sound should pass up from the ear to the nerves and brain, so that we hear. Therein is a mystery which no mortal man can explain. ”

“ To begin with, then, it is probable that in many of these cases, especially those occurring in the first six months, we have to do with an organic phenomenon, with a sort of jar to the nervous system. To understand this we have to remember that the ear is, in the case of man at least, the sense-organ through which the nervous system is most powerfully and profoundly acted on. ”

“ Besides, how can we think that an ear, which has a narrow passage, can receive the same sound with that which has a wide one? Or the ear, whose inside is full of hair, to hear the same with a smooth ear? Experience tells us that if we stop, or half stop, our ears, the sound cometh different as when the ears are open. ”

“ And I shall here, once for all, observe, that an investigation of the natural and mechanical causes of our passions, besides the curiosity of the subject, gives, if they are discovered, a double strength and lustre to any rules we deliver on such matters. When the ear receives any simple sound, it is struck by a single pulse of the air which makes the ear-drum and the other membranous parts vibrate according to the nature and species of the stroke. If the stroke be strong, the organ of hearing suffers a considerable degree of tension. ”