Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T00:50:20.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Menière's disease: evolution of a definition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2007

N. J. P. Beasley  and
N. S. Jones
N. J. P. Beasley*
Affiliation:
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Walton Hospital, Liverpool, UK.
N. S. Jones
Affiliation:
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, UK.
*
Address for correspondence: Mr N. J. P. Beasley, 6, Sandlea Park, West Kirby, Wirral L48 0QF. Fax: 0151-529-4033
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In 1861 Prosper Menière separated patients with episodic vertigo, hearing loss and tinnitus from a group previously described as having apoplectiform cerebral congestion. He suggested the cause was disease within the semicircular canals (Menière, 1861). Over the years it becoame apparent that within this group there were a number of patients with characteristic signs and symptoms and in 1938 a pathological correlate was found in the form of endolympatic hydrops. Descriptions scuh as Menière's ‘Menière's ‘disease’, Menière's ‘syndrome’ and Menière' ‘symptom complex’ led to a confusing array of terms for this condition and monotoring of treatment results became difficult. In response to this in 1972 the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and Otolaryngoly Committee on Hearing and Equillibrium published a clear definition of Menière's disease and criteria for the reporting of treatment results, it was updated in 1985 and again in 1995. We described the changes that have taken place as the definition of Menière's disease has evolved.

Keywords

History of Medicine, 19 the Century, 20th centuryMenière's disease
Type
Historical Article
Information
The Journal of Laryngology & Otology , Volume 110 , Issue 12 , December 1996 , pp. 1107 - 1113
Copyright
Copyright © JLO (1984) Limited 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Presented at the British Society for the History of ENT, Birmingham, October 1994. Winner of the Junior Doctor presentation prize.

References

Alford, B. R. (1972) Committee on Hearing and Equilibrium; report of Subcommittee on Equilibrium and its measurements. Menière's disease: Criteria for diagnosis and evaluation of therapy for reporting. Transactions of the Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology 76: 1462–1464.Google Scholar
Angell-James, J. (1969) Menière's disease: treatment with ultrasound. Journal of Laryngology and Otology 83: 771–785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arenberg, K., Countryman, L. F., Bernstein, L. H., Shambaugh, G. E. (1990) Van Gough had Menière's disease and not epilepsy. Journal of the American Medical Association 264: 491–493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birch, C. A. (1974) Menière's disease. The Practitioner 213: 391–392.Google ScholarPubMed
Cawthorne, T. (1947) Menière's disease. Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology 56: 18–38.Google ScholarPubMed
Cawthorne, T. (1958) Julius Caesar and the falling sickness. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 51: 27–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charcot, J. M. (1874) Conferences cliniques de Salpetriere: Vertiges ab aure laesa (maladie de Meniere). Gazette des Hospiteaux Civils et Militaires 47: 73–74.Google Scholar
Committee on Hearing and Equilibrium (1995) Guidelines for the diagnosis and evaluation of therapy in Menièr's disease. Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery 113: 181–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowe, S. J. (1938) Menière's disease. Medicine 17: 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dandy, W. E. (1928) Menière's disease. Its diagnosis and a method of treatment. Archives of Surgery 16: 1127–1152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dandy, W. E. (1941) The surgical treatment of Menière's disease. Surgery, Gynaecology and Obstetrics 72: 421–430.Google Scholar
Editorial (1969) Journal of the American Medical Association 207: 1708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fick, I. A. van N. (1964) Decompression of the labyrinth. Archives of Otolaryngology 79: 447–458.Google Scholar
Flourens, M. J. P. (1842) Recherches experimentales sur les proprietes et les functions du systeme nerveux dans les animanx vertebres. J. B. Balliere, Paris.Google Scholar
Furstenberg, A. C., Lashmet, F. H., Lathrop, F. (1934) Menière's symptom complex: Medical treatment. Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology 43: 1035–1046.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garnett Passe, E. R., Seymour, J. S. (1948) Menière's syndrome: successful treatment by surgery on the sympathetic. British Medical Journal ii: 812–816.Google Scholar
Hallpike, C. S., Cairns, H. (1938) Observations on the pathology of Menière's syndrome. Journal of Laryngology and Otology 53: 625–655.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Itard, J. M. G. (1821) Traite des maladies de l'orielle et del'audition. Paris 1: 370–373.Google Scholar
Jackson, C., Jackson, C. L. (1946) Diseases of the Nose, Throat, and Ear. 1st Edition. W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia and London, pp 365–370.Google Scholar
Knapp, H. (1871) Clinical analysis of inflammation affections of inner ear. Archives of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology 2: 204–283.Google Scholar
Lake, R. (1904) Removal of the semicircular canals in a case of unilateral aural vertigo. Lancet i: 1567–1568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McBride, P., James, A. (1880) Epilepsy, vertigo and ear disease. Edinburgh Medical Journal 25: 702–708.Google Scholar
McBride, P. (1881) Auditory vertigo. Edinburgh Medical Journal 26: 624–631.Google Scholar
McKee, G. J., Kerr, A. G., Toner, J. G., Smyth, G. D. L. (1991) Surgical control of vertigo in Menière's disease. Clinical Otolaryngology 16: 216–227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meniere, P. (1861) Memoire sur des lesions de l'oreille interne donnant lieu a des symptomes de congestion cerebrale apoplectiforme. (A report on lesions of the inner ear giving rise to symptoms of cerebral congestion of apoplectic type.) Gazette Medicale de Paris 16: 597–601.Google Scholar
Paparella, M. M., Morizono, T., Matsunaga, T. (1992) Kyoshiro Yamakawa, MD, and temporal bone histopathology of Menière's patient reported in 1938. Archives of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery 118: 660–662.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pearson, B. W., Brackmann, D. E. (1985) Committee on hearing and equilibrium guidelines for reporting treatment results in Meniere's disease. Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery 93: 579–580.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Politzer, A. (trans. Ballin, M. J., Heller, C. L.) (1902) A Text-Book of the Diseases of the Ear for Students and Practitioners. 4th Edition. Balliere, Tindall and Cox, London, pp 730–741.Google Scholar
Portmann, G. (1927) The saccus endolymphaticus and an operation for draining the same for the relief of vertigo. Journal of Laryngology and Otology 42: 809–817.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tumarkin, A. (1966) Thoughts on the treatment of labyrinthopathy. Journal of Laryngology and Otology 80: 1041–1053.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wright, A. J. (1938) Aural vertigo. Journal of Laryngology and Otology 53: 97–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar