There are cases in which Ménière's disease-like attack occurs in repeated episodes after a latent period following head injury, chronic otitis media, viral otitis interna, sudden deafness, etc. Schuknecht named such a pathologic condition of the inner ear “delayed hydrops syndrome”, but this term, in our opinion, cannot be considered as fully explanatory of the condition in question. The present author proposes to describe it as “diminished capacity of preserving inner ear function”. More particularly, taking head injury as an example, he surmises that when the trauma has caused commotio labyrinthi with a resultant impairment of hearing and vestibular function, the third function of the inner ear, i. e. capacity of preserving its internal environment, might have also been diminished. If generalized autonomic imbalance occurs from overstrain and/or want of sleep after subsidence of the commotio labyrinthi, then the inner ear whose capacity to preserve its function has been impaired would be the first of all organs to suffer dysfunction and attacks of Ménière's disease would thus ensue. Organs have a disease or diseases which they are specifically affected with when they are involved in autonomic imbalance, for example, angina pectoris for the heart, asthma for the bronchus, ulcer for the stomach, neurogenic diarrhea for the intestine and Ménière's disease for the inner ear. A disease that is most likely to first occur from overstrain and/or want of sleep in a given individual is defining for that individual. This is because each individual has a predetermined ranking of organs according to their predisposition to involvement in autonomic imbalance. When the inner ear becomes diseased and its capacity of preserving its function becomes impaired, the situation changes and, in fact, there is even a possibility that the inner ear becomes the first to be affected with disease. As a consequence there may be instances in which the patient who has never experienced vertigo before develops attacks of Ménière's disease precipitated by overstrain and/or want of sleep before he is attacked by angina pectoris or gastric ulcer. The introduction of this concept of the ranking of organs concerning their liability to be involved in autonomic imbalance makes it more understandable that although Ménière's disease is unilateral in most instances, bilateral involvement does indeed occur. Based on the above concept, the unilateral occurrence of the disease may be explained as follows: the inner ear on the affected side ranks first in terms of predisposition to disease, some other organ comes next, while the inner ear on the opposite side holds the third or lower place. Under such circumstances, if stress is so powerful that organs affected by it might not be limited to the inner ear (Ménière's disease), a disease of other organs, e. g. bronchial asthma and gastric ulcer, will therefore ensue. In bilateral Ménière's disease as opposed to a unilateral one, the inner ear on one side ranks first in the order of predisposition to disease and the organ on the opposite side stands second. In such an instance a severe stress would therefore give rise to dysfunction of both inner ears, hence resultant Ménière's disease takes its bilateral form.
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