Abstract
Since the first reports of endolymphatic hydrops in Meniere's disease by Yamakawa and Hallpike & Cairns in 1938, various attempts have been made to induce endolymphatic hydrops experimentally in animals. We reviewed the literature from 1947 to 1990 on methods of inducing experimental endolympphatic hydrops and summarized these methods on the basis of Schuknecht's classification of human endolymphatic hydrops into progressive and non-progressive types. The progressive pattern of hydrops was induced experimentally in guinea pigs using the silver nitrate cauterization method developed in our department in 1981. This type of experimental endolymphatic hydrops has been found particularly suitable as an animal model of Meniere's disease, since endolymphatic hydrops in Meniere's disease is always of the progressive pattern.
