Adam Politzer

Adam Politzer (Hungarian: Politzer Ádám; 1 October 1835, Albertirsa, Pest, Hungary – 10 August 1920, in Vienna) was a Hungarian and Austrian physician and one of the pioneers and founders of otology.

Adam Politzer was born in Alberti (now part of Albertirsa), near the city of Budapest, to a well-to-do Jewish family.

He studied medicine in the University of Vienna. Some of his teachers belonged to the famous Second "Vienna School", such as Carl Freiherr von Rokitansky (1804–1878) and Josef Skoda (1805–1881) (its founders), as well as Joseph Hyrtl (1810–1894), Johann Ritter von Oppolzer (1808–1871), and the famous physiologist Carl Ludwig (1816–1895). The last two took interest in Politzer and were influential in his subsequent career.

Politzer received his M.D. in 1859 and started to work in Carl Ludwig's laboratory. His interest since that time was mainly the physics of the auditory system. There, he was the first to demonstrate physiologically that the innervation of the tensor tympani muscle was by the trigeminal nerve and that the innervation of the stapedial muscle was by the facial nerve. In another series of experiments, Politzer connected two manometers, one placed in the external auditory canal meatus and another in the pharynx, in order to study air movements through the Eustachian tube. In 1861, he published his first results on a new technique based on this knowledge, to treat internal ear diseases by insufflating the middle ear through the Eustachian tube, which obviated the need of its catheterization. This came to be known as politzerisation. In the subsequent decades, the technique was widely adopted throughout the world, bringing fame to Politzer.

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