Meniere's Disease History

Objective Tests

Whenever I revise the history of Meniere's disease I am always surprised.

A comparison of the objective tests that a specialist of Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) can use today to the tests that Dr. Prosper Meniere (press for further reading) could do on 1861 shows a big discrepancy in the technology.

Primitive Instruments

The brilliant French Doctor had primitive instruments and could not use Imaging (CT-scan, MRI, MRA, Ultra Sound) and reliable blood tests. In addition to that, the main medical symptom was not defined in his days.

The specialists did not know how to classify the central criteria in the meniere's disease symptoms: the vertigo. They did not know if it is an inner ear disease or a type of epilepsy.

Research of tinnitus was based on few historical figures that were the pioneers of the research.

Use of electric current to suppress tinnitus

Among them were Grapengiesser, who was a consultant physician to the King of Prussia in Berlin. He published in 1801 a book about "Galvanism" (Electricity), and claimed that electric current helped to suppress tinnitus in deaf patients.

His publication initiated controversy with many others, who claimed that these are irreproducible results. In the field of sound therapy, Urbantschitssch in Vienna published in 1883 a research about the interaction between a sound that is generated by a tuning fork and tinnitus.

Meniere's Disease Today

Meniere's disease remained a mysterious medical condition even today. The advanced technology provided the clinicians a lot of information.

There are devices that makes the human body transparent to many types of radiation.

There are laboratories that can take small samples of blood, urine, CSF, or other fluids and provide accurate analysis of chemicals, cells, proteins, hormones, microbes, fungi, components of the immune system or poisons such as heavy metals.

There are computerized tests that provide the clinician information about electrophysiological responses of the patient, such as ABR, ENG, VNG or Posturography.

In spite of all these, there are many issues that are not clearly understood about patients who suffer from Meniere's disease.