Rhinology, laryngology and otology and their significance in general medicine.

  • Friedrich, Ernst Paul.
Date:
1900
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rhinology, laryngology and otology and their significance in general medicine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    PREFACE In these days of specialism there is a laudable tendency to tighten the bonds that unite the daughter to the mother science. On every hand we see the pubh'cation of works destined to show the correlation between various branches of medicine, and to awaken the interest of representatives of the various specialties for one another's work by defining the lines where their respective provinces meet. The present book belongs to this category, and the author's object has been to point out the interdependence between diseases of the entire organism and diseases of the nose, pharynx, larynx, and ears. It is a somewhat hazardous experiment, this attempt to unite the three specialties rhinology, laryngology, and otology in a single treatise, and I am well aware of the opposition it is destined to meet from the extreme advocates of specialism. But let us examine the relation between these three specialties. A study of the history shows us that rhinology was added to laryngology in response to a practical demand, and that recent developments have shown that otology stands more and more in need of rhi- nology—so much so that a distinction might be made be- tween rhino-laryngology and rhino-otology. But we ought rather to oppose this subdivision, since the study of rhi- nology is as important for the successful practice of laryn- gology, as a knowledge of nasal affections is indispensable in the practice of otology ; in other words, one specialty encroaches on the domain of another, and it is impossible to establish definite boundaries. Whenever it becomes necessary to examine more care- fully certain regions of the body, anatomically and physi- ologically distinct, the natural result is the growth of a specialt)-. As experience shows that certain portions of the organism