Radiologic Findings in Otosclerosis

The association of hearing loss with stapes fixation was apparently demonstrated by Valsalva, and recognized by Morgagni and Meckel,⁸but it remained for Toynbee,¹⁹in 1857, to establish the fact that osseous ankylosis of the stapes to the fenestra ovalis is, pathologically, one of the commonest causes of deafness. Von Tröltsch²⁰was the first to give "otosclerosis" a separate place in the category of clinical diseases of the ear. Now the otologic journals are filled with articles discussing the operative treatment of hearing loss due to stapes fixation, and the world's otolaryngologists are preoccupied with the techniques of mobilization surgery. From the standpoint of pathology, however, what can we add to this statement made by Pritchard¹⁵in 1891? "Progressive Tympanic Deafness, Non-Proliferative Aural Catarrh, Otosclerosis—All the above names have been given to a certain form, or possibly, to many forms of middle ear deafness, the pathology