In some people there is an excessive development of the auricular
muscles, enabling them to move their ears in a manner similar to
that of the lower animals. Of the celebrated instances the Abbe
de Marolles, says Vigneul-Marville, bears witness in his
"Memoires" that the Regent Crassot could easily move his ears.
Saint Augustine mentions this anomaly.
Double tympanitic membrane is spoken of by Loeseke. There is
sometimes natural perforation of the tympanum in an otherwise
perfect ear, which explains how some people can blow
tobacco-smoke from the ear. Fournier has seen several Spaniards
and Germans who could perform this feat, and knew one man who
could smoke a whole cigar without losing any smoke, since he made
it leave either by his mouth, his ears, or in both ways. Fournier
in the same article mentions that he has seen a woman with ears
over four inches long.
Strange to say, there have been reports of cases in which the
ossicles were deficient without causing any imperfection of
hearing. Caldani mentions a case with the incus and malleus
deficient, and Scarpa and Torreau quote instances of deficient
ossicles. Thomka in 1895 reported a case of supernumerary
tympanic ossicle, the nature of which was unknown, although it
was neither an inflammatory product nor a remnant of Meckel's
cartilage.
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