The Historical Background of Otosclerosis

Otosclerosis is a disorder that affects the otic capsule exclusively. The term otosclerosis is itself actually a misnomer. It is localized otoporosis, not sclerosis of the otic capsule in its active stage. Many authors prefer the term otospongiosis because they feel this word more accurately describes the disease in its active phase. For the purposes of convenience, the disease is described as otosclerosis for the rest of this book.

It was Italian anatomist Valsalva who,on a postmortem examination of a deaf patient, described ankylosis of the stapes to the margins of the oval window. English otogist Toynbee noted osseous ankylosis in his dissection of over a thousand temporal bones. It was Politzer who first applied the term otosclerosis. He based this on his findings on temporal bones of patients whom he had diagnosed to be suffering from “deafness that had previously been attributed to chronic interstitial middle ear catarrh with secondary stapes ankylosis.” Politzer’s discovery was confirmed by Bezold and by Siebenmann. In 1912, Siebenmann proposed a change in nomenclature from otosclerosis to otospongiosis. This change received support from the French otologist Sourdille.

In 1950, Raymond Thomas Carhart, an audiologist, originated the term air-bone gap