The workes of that famous chirurgion Ambrose Parey translated out of Latine and compared with the French. by Th: Johnson

CHAP. X. Of the Eares and Parotides or kernels of the Eares.

THe Eares are the Organs of the Sense of hearing. They are composed * 1.1 of the skin, a little flesh, a gristle, veines, arteries and nerves. They may be bended or folded in without harme, because being gristlely, they easily yeild and give way; but they would not doe so, if they should be bony, but would rather break. That lap at which they hang pendants * 1.2 and lewels, is by the ancients called Fibra; but the upper part pinna. They have beene framed by the providence of nature into twining passages like a Snailes shell, which as they come neerer to the foramen caecum, or blind hole, are the more straitened, * 1.3 that so they might the better gather the aire into them, & conceive the differences of sounds and voices, and by little and little leade them to the membrane.

This membrane which is indifferently hard hath growne up from the nerves of the fifth conjugation, which they call the auditory. But they were made thus into crooked windings, least the sounds rushing in too violently should hurt the sense of hearing. Yet for all this we oft find it troubled and hurt by the noise of thunder, Guns and Bels. Other wise also lest that the aire too sodainely entring in should by

its qualitys, as cold, cause some harme: and also that little creeping things and other extraneous bodys as fleas & the like, should be staied in these windings and turnings of the waies, the glutinous thicknes of the cholerick excrement or eare-waxe hereunto also conduceing, which the braine purges and sends forth into this part, that is, the * 1.4 auditory passage framed into these intricate Maeanders.

[illustration]

The Figure of the eares and bones of the auditory passage.

Tab, 10. sheweth the eares and the divers internall parts thereof.

Fig. 1. sheweth the whole external eare, with a part of the Temple bone.

Fig. 2. sheweth the left bone of the Temple divided in the middest by the instrument of hearing, whereabout on either side there are certaine passages heere par∣ticularly described.

Fig. 3, and 4. sheweth the three little Bones.

Fig. 5. sheweth a portion of the bone of the temples which is seen¦neere the hole of Hearing divi∣ded through the middest, where∣by the Nerves, Bones and Mem∣branes may appeare as Vesalius of them conceiveth.

Fig. 6. sheweth the Vessels, Mem∣branes, Bones and holes of the Organ of hearing, as Platerus hath described them.

Fig. 7, and 8. sheweth the little bones of the hearing of a man and of a Calfe, both ioyned and separated.

Fig. 9. sheweth the Muscle found out by Aquapendens.

For the particular declaration see D. Crookes Anatomie, pag. 577.

But that we may understand how the hearing is made, we must know the structure of the organ or instrument hereof. The membrane which we formerly mentioned * 1.5 to confist of the auditory nerve, is stretched in the inside over the auditory passage like as the head of a Drum. For it is stretched and extended with the Aire, or auditory spirit implanted there, & shut up in the cavity of the mammillary processe and fora∣men caecum, that smitten upon by the touch of the externall aire entring in, it may re∣ceive the object, that is the sound, which is nothing else then a certaine quality a∣rising * 1.6 from the aire beaten or moved by the collision, and conflict of one or more bodyes.

Such a collision is spred over the aire, as the water which by the gliding touch of a stone produces many circles and rings one as it were rising from another. So in rivelets running in a narrow channel, the water strucken and as it were, beaten back in its course against broken, craggy and steep rocks, wheels about into many turnings: this collision of the beaten aire flying back diverse waies from arched and hollow

roofed places, as Dens, Cisterns, Wells, thick Woods and the like, yeilds and produces * 1.7 a double sound, and this reduplication is called and Echo. Wherefore the hearing is thus made by the aire, as a medium, but this aire is twofold, that is, externall and internall.

The exteriour is that which encompasses vs, but the interiour is that which is shut * 1.8 up in the cavity of the mammillary processe and for amen caecum, which truly is not pure and sole aire, but tempered and mixed with the auditory spirit. Thence proceeds the noise or beating of the Eares, when vapours are there mixed with the aire insteed of spirits, whereby their motion or agitation is perturbed and confused. But neither doe these suffice for hearing, for nature for the more exact distinction of sounds hath also made the little bones, of which one is called the Incus or anvill, another the Mal∣leolus or hammer, the third the Stapes or stirrop, because the shapethereof resembles a German stirrop. Also it may be called Deltoides, because it is made in the shape of the Greeke letter Δ.

They are placed behind the membrane; wherefore the anvill and hammer moved * 1.9 by the force of the entrance of the externall aire, and beating thereof against that membrane, they more distinctly expresse the difference of sounds, as strings stretched within under the head of a Drum; as for example, these bones being more gently moved represent a low sound to they common sense & faculty of bearing, but being moved more vehemently and violently, they present a quick and great sound; to con∣clude, according to their diverse agitation, they produce diverse and different sounds. * 1.10

The Glandules should follow the Eares in the order of Anatomy, as well those which are called the emunctoryes of the braine, that is, the Parotides (Which are placed as it were at the lower part of the eares) as these which lye under the lower Iaw, the muscles of the bone Hyoides & the tongue, in which the Scrophulae and other such cold abscesses breed. It shall here suffice to set dovvne the use of all such like Glandules.

Therefore the Parotides are framed in that place by nature, to receive the viru∣lent and maligne matter sent forth by the strength of the braine, by the veines and arteries spred over that place. The rest serve to strengthen the division of the vessels, to moysten the ligaments and membranes of the Iaw, lest they should be dryed by their continuall motion. Their other conditions and uses are formerly handled in our first booke of Anatomy.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The nature and composi∣tion of the eares.
• * 1.2

  What the Fibra and pinna are.
• * 1.3

  The figure and the rea∣son thereof.
• * 1.4

  For what use the eare-waxe serves.
• * 1.5

  For what use the membrane stretched un∣der the audito∣ry passage serves.
• * 1.6

  What sound is,
• * 1.7

  The cause of an echo.
• * 1.8

  The 3 bones of the auditory passage.
• * 1.9

  Theiruse.
• * 1.10

  Whence the difference of sounds.