Guichard Joseph Duverney or Joseph-Guichard Du Verney (5 August 1648 – 10 September 1730) was a French anatomist who was a native of Feurs in the province of Forez.

He studied medicine in Avignon, where in 1667 he obtained his medical degree. Shortly afterwards, he relocated to Paris, where in 1676 he became a member of the Académie des sciences. He is remembered for his anatomical exhibitions at the Jardin du Roi in Paris, and is considered by many to be the founder of otology.^[1]

Duverney published one of the earliest comprehensive works on otology, titled Traite de l'organe de l'ouie, contenant la structure, les usages et les maladies de toutes les parties de l'Oreille (Treatise on the organ of hearing, containing the structure, function, and diseases of all parts of the ear) in Paris in 1683. In this book he discusses the anatomy, physiology and diseases of the ear. Duverney's theory of hearing was fundamentally similar to what Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) later proposed in the mid 19th century, except that he had the direction of the frequency mapping reversed: he thought that high frequency would resonate near the apex of the cochlea, and low frequencies near the base (Domenico Cotugno in 1760 turned this around to the correct direction).^[2]

In 1683, Duverney identified a temporal bone tumor, which is thought to be the earliest description of cholesteatoma. He realized the importance of the Eustachian tube and its role in adjusting air pressure in the tympanic cavity. However, he believed that the Eustachian tube was always open, acting as a vent to the air, when the eardrum moves in and out.

Duverney's clinical work led to the posthumous publication of a book, Maladies des Os, which contains both the description of the eponymous Duverney fracture and the first full description of osteoporosis.^[3]

[edit] References

1. ^ Amédée Dechambre (editor), Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales, First edition, volume 30, Masson & Asselin, Paris, 1884, p. 729–731.
2. ^ Ernest Glen Wever (1961). Theory of hearing. Wiley. p. 14. 
3. ^ Mostofi, Seyed Behrooz (editor) (2005). Who's Who in Orthopaedics. Springer London. p. 92. ISBN 9781852337865. http://www.springerlink.com/content/kr282n3375672507/. Retrieved 2009-10-16. 

• NCBI National Library of Medicine; Guichard Joseph Duverney
• Parts of this article are based on a translation of the equivalent article from the French Wikipedia.