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April 6, 1918


Author Affiliations

Attending Ophthalmic Surgeon, Lebanon Hospital; Junior Surgeon, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary NEW YORK

JAMA. 1918;70(14):991-992. doi:10.1001/jama.1918.26010140002011a

The great importance of aerial flight in modern warfare, and the need of full information as to the functional integrity of aviators, has shown how a practical demand in medical science can almost immediately produce a supply in the standardization and application of labyrinthine tests which until comparatively recently were, if not quite theoretical, at least not applied so uniformly, generally and accurately as to become a routine measure of value. At present, the rotational tests can be carried out in less than a half hour, and the vertigo, past pointing and falling, in fact, the entire labyrinthine reaction, determined and recorded. This is due largely to the use of a standard chair that can be stopped on the second and rotated evenly at a given speed, and to the control of all tests with the stop watch. It has generally been assumed that a normal labyrinth is the sine