Incidence, Location and Extent of Otosclerotic Lesions

OTOSCLEROSIS is not a rare disease in Caucasians. Nothing is known about its incidence in the yellow races of mankind or in any of the unmixed black races. In the American Negro, otosclerosis occurs much less frequently than it does in the white population of this country. The disease, so far as is known, does not occur in any species except Homo sapiens. Otosclerosis is primarily a disease of bone; the effect of the disease on hearing is secondary to the location and the extent of the bony lesion.1If the figures that I reported to this Study Group at its 1943 meeting1ahold essentially true as larger collections of material are prepared and studied, approximately one eighth of all white females, including girls 5 years of age and older, and about one fifteenth of all white males of the corresponding age group have otosclerotic lesions. The incidence of clinical