Prosper Menière
Prosper Ménière is an important name in the fields of Otology and Neurotology. In 1861 he presented a paper before the French Academy of Medicine in which he described a series of patients with episodic vertigo and hearing loss. He also mentioned the postmortem examination of a young girl who experienced vertigo after a hemorrhage into the inner ear. Before that time, vertigo was thought to be a cerebral symptom similar to epilepsy. Menière pointed out that vertigo frequently had a benign course. He was not attempting to define a disease or syndrome but rather to emphasize that vertigo originated from damage to the inner ear. A portrait of Prosper Menière The disease that he described in 1861 is still named after him. And he is praised by his precise clinical description of its symptoms. The French neurologists of that time, however, firmly believed that vertigo was a brain disorder. In fact, their belief was so intense that they attacked Menière in a vicious manner. The French