10/2/2023 0 Comments Weber tuning fork used for![]() The foot of the stapes contacts the oval window, and sound waves are then transmitted through the fluid-filled cochlea (4). The middle ear is comprised of a series of three bones, also called the ossicles: the malleus, incus, and stapes. When sound waves make contact with the tympanic membrane, it vibrates, causing subsequent vibration of the “middle ear”. The auricle or pinna of the ear helps capture sound waves, which then transmit through air to the tympanic membrane via the external acoustic canal. Over the years, tuning forks fell quickly out of favor in the musical world, but its utility as a bedside tool a la Rinne and Weber are enough to reserve a spot in the B pod drawer. This hypothesis was put to the test again nearly one hundred years later by G C Schelhammer, a German physician, who, in perhaps true emergency medicine fashion, made do with what tool he had – a simple table fork (2, 3). The understanding of its science, though, finds roots in the sixteenth century, when G Cardano, an Italian astrologer, physician, and mathematician, hypothesized that sound could be transmitted through bone as well as air, a concept that would be used only years later by a different physician, H Capivacci, to differentiate different kinds of hearing loss (1). ![]() The modern tuning fork originally arose as a musical instrument, invented by London trumpeter John Store (1-3). ![]() The eighteenth century saw the invention of the tuning fork, a tool that, due to its remarkable simplicity and sound physics, has remained largely unchanged since its conception.
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