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Before Georg von Bekesy began his research into the mechanics of hearing, the prevailing view of this process was that of Hermann von Helmholtz, who in the 1860's had determined the interrelated functions of the tympanic membrane and the three bones of the middle ear. Helmholtz also discovered the importance of the basilar membrane in the inner ear for hearing, but contemporary techniques did not allow him or other late nineteenth century researchers, such as Italian anatomist Alfonso Corti, to work out the further details of the hearing process. In the 1920's, the purpose of the inner ear remained poorly understood. Part of the problem was the delicacy of the cochlea, which prevented both dissection and close study.

By 1928, Bekesy had succeeded in dissecting the ear so that its auditory functions could be studied. He used a low-power microscope on a fresh cadaver under water. With very small mirrors and scissors of his own design, and by performing this complicated postmortem surgery very quickly, he was able to observe wave motion in the cochlea before the inevitable deterioration or damage to the organ made this study impossible. He made the sound waves visible to his microscope by sprinkling silver dust or some other reflective particles on the basilar membrane, then observing the vibrating membrane under an intense stroboscopic light.

The basilar membrane divides the median and tympanic canals within the cochlea. Bekesy's new techniques allowed him to discover that as this membrane vibrates it stimulates the hair cells of the adjacent organ of Corti, whose motion is detected by the spiral ganglion of the eighth cranial nerve, the acoustic nerve, which then transmits these impulses to the brain so that hearing can occur. He was also able to correlate various types, amplitudes, and locations of waves along the basilar membrane with the transmission of various aspects of sound, such as pitch, volume, and tone. For example, the basilar waves of high frequencies peak near the entrance to the cochlea, while those of low frequencies peak deeper inside.

Bekesy's results from these dissections gave him the knowledge to build functional models of the cochlea that would aid in his further study without the need for studying more cadavers. The most useful of these models, constructed while he was at Harvard University, consisted of a sealed, thirty-centimeter plastic tube filled with water. He would lay his bare forearm along the length of the tube, then introduce sounds at one end of it. Because he could feel the vibrations from each of these sounds each at a different place on his forearm, the nerves in his forearm thus became a substitute for the basilar membrane.

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