ABSTRACT
Not infrequently, when a husband and a wife walk into the otologist's office, the dialogue follows a familiar pattern. The physician asks the man what his difficulty is, and before he has a chance to answer, his wife blurts out that he is deaf and does not pay attention to her. The husband generally looks meek and bewildered, as if he is not sure what is going on, but he certainly does not want to assume the blame for all of his difficulty. It soon becomes apparent that bickering and strife are his key problems and that they were brought on by his hearing loss. One of the most heartbreaking episodes the authors have encountered in otologic practice occurred with a 21-year-old man who pleaded from some cure for his bilateral nerve deafness secondary to meningitis contracted 6 years earlier. The patient offered to turn over all of the small amount of money he had in the bank if he could be given even a moderate cure for his hearing loss. When asked what prompted him to seek help now, 6 years after the onset of deafness, he replied tearfully that it was important to hear his new baby when she cried during the night.
