Image source: Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg (August 22, 2020: »»)
München : Verlag der J. J. Lentner'schen Buchhandlung (E. Stahl), 1867–] 1875.
Description : issued as three portfolios, loose leaves of plates and descriptive text held in boards with ties ; 32-33 cm.
• Lieferung 1 (1866) : [1 l.] prospectus, [12 l.] text, [8 l.] phots., [4 l.] lith. ;
photographs : 8 oval format collotypes mounted on loose printed boards.
• Lieferung 2 (1867) : [12 l.] text, [8 l.] phots., [4 l.] lith. ;
photographs : 8 (1 oval) collotypes mounted on loose printed boards.
• Lieferung 3 (1875) : [14 l.] text, [14 l.] phots. ;
photographs : 14 collotypes mounted on loose printed boards.
Photographer : Josef Albert, 1825-1886.
Subject : Ear — Anatomy ; photographic atlases.
Notes :
Die Verwerthung der Photographie auf den Gebieten der Kunst und Wissenschaft hat in verhältnissmässig kurzer Zeit bedeutende Dimensionen angenommen. Kaum sind vier Jahre verflossen, dass Weichgebilde des menschlichen Körpers in natürlicher Grösse, zum ersten Male durch Albert, auf photographischem Wege vervielfältigt wurden un jetzt schon sehen wir in vielen Ländern die Photographie als eine Lieblingsmethode der bildlichen Darstellung und Vervielfältigung wissenschaftlicher Objecte in Anwendung.
In der That gibt es kein geeigneteres Hilfsmittel, die kleinen und zierlich geformten Gebilde des menschlichen Gehörorganes, wenn dieselben mit möglichster Präcision und Reinheit präparirt sind, wahrhafter bildlich zu vervielfältigen, als die Photographie, besonders wie sie in dem Atelier des bis jetzt unübertroffenen Albert und seines sehr geschickten ersten Mitarbeiters Fröschle gehandhabt wird.
Dieser Grundsatz wird bei der bildlichen Darstellung der kleinen Details des Gehörorgans je nach Erforderniss zur Anwendung gebracht. Nach vielen mühevollen Versuchen ist es endlich gelungen, bei der photographischen Nachbildung der Präperate die Bilder ohne Retouche in vier bis fünfmaliger director Vergrösserung auf dem Negativ zu fixiren, ein Resultat, welches bis jetzt einzig in seiner Art dasteht. Wenn man von der Retouche Gebrauch machte, so geschah es miltelst einer Lasur auf der Rückseite des Negativs, um auf dem positiven Bilde die erwünschte Vertheilung von Licht und Schatten zu gewinnen. In ähnlicher Weise wurden auch Punkte, Striche und Zahlen auf den Abbildungen angebracht.
Bekanntlich ist jedoch die photographische Darstellung nicht für all Objecte geeignet, wesshalb einige mikroskopische Abbildungen über die Gefässanordnung im Gehörorgane, welche von einem geschickten Zeichner getreu nach der Natur ausgeführt und auf lithographischem Wege vervielfältigt werden.—Prospectus, 1866).
Naturwahre Abbildungen haben sich für das anatomische Studium aller Körperorgane als unentbehrliche Hilfsmittel erwiesen, besonders aber für das des menschlichen und tierischen Gehörorganes, welches der Präparation die größten Schwierigkeiten entgegenstellt. Da nun keine bildliche Darstellung getreuere Kopien von gut bearbeiteten Objekten zu liefern im stande ist, als die Photographie, so glaubt der Verfasser mit der Herausgabe des vorliegenden Atlas des Gehörorganes, bei dessen Herstellung die Photographie vorwiegend in Anwendung kam, den Fachgenossen, Aerzten und Studierenden eine Arbeit zu liefern, die geeignet sein dürfte, als treuer Führer nicht nur beim Unterricht und Selbststudium, sondern auch bei Anfertigung von Präparaten des komplizierten Sinnesorganes dienen zu können.—Forward, 1875.
It bears repeating that the auditory ossicles are the smallest bones in the human body. The tortuous structures of the inner ear with its membranous involutes curling inside exquisitely delicate bone chambers, blurred the division between 19th century macroscopic and microscopic anatomical sciences, guerdoning only the most gifted prosectors. In 1863, Bischoff was ready to promote the ongoing otological investigations of his prosection lab and the accomplishments of his gifted protégé, Nicolaus Rüdinger, who directed the lab. The opportunity came when the Breslau otolarynologist, Friedrich Eduard Voltolini (1819-1889), denied the existence of a saccule rotundus, "Es gibt überhaupt gar keinen Sacculus rotundus" (1863: »»), Bischoff accepted the challenge and invited Voltolini to deposit one of his specimens at the lab. Voltolini's claim was a gaffe, but it had to be taken seriously, because he had recently published his inaugural dissertation with a breakthrough hours long procedure for sectioning the semicircular membranes that left their utrical connections intact ("Die Zerlegung und Untersuchung des Gehörorgans an der Leiche" ; 1862). Alongside one of Rüdinger's, however, Voltolini's specimen dispirited, figuratively and literally, as it was preserved in distilled water that deteriorated nervous structures and obliterated the otoliths. Rüdinger's specimens, on the other hand, were preserved in alcohol and were probably treated with his proprietary carbolic acid and glycerine formula prior to extraction. Bischoff presented the work of both men before the June 13, 1863, session of the Mathematisch-physikal. Classe of K.B. Akademie der Wissenschaften and noted that, like Hyrtl, he had never seen a perfect extraction of the labyrinth (1863: »»). He then explained the missteps in Voltolini's procedure that left (paraphrasing) saccular components to the realm of impossibility, hence admitting error. Bischoff praises Voltolini's work and remarked that he had a very capable and amenable follower in Rüdinger, whose preparations, by contrast, preserved beautifully the membranous components of the labyrinth and kept the sacculus in its place, undamaged. Bischoff's communication alerted the world to Rüdinger's skills and portended his atlas on the ear. Fortunately, Voltolini and Rüdinger remained collegial and in 1867 they joined Josef Gruber (1827-1900) and Friedrich Eugen Weber-Liel (1832-1891) in founding the Monatsschrift für Ohrenheilkunde.
Besides Bischoff, Rüdinger found another powerful ally in Jószef Hyrtl, who was the reader and honored dedicatee of Rüdinger's provenia legendi on the comparative anatomy of the sypathetic system (1863: »»). Their alliance began earlier with Rudinger's paper on the semilunar valve of the heart that provided supportive evidence Hyrtl could use in his public dispute against Brücke's conclusions about coronary blood flow during systole (Rüdinger, 1857: »»). Hyrtl's arguments on heart function were vindicated, but he lost another dispute over his belief that the semicircular canals provided directional hearing. Hyrtl was largely credited for recentering the neglected art of corrosion casting in morphological studies, his process explicated in a treatise on the ear titled, "Vergleichend anatomische Untersuchungen über das innere Gehörorgan" (1845: »»). He returned to general applications of corrosion casting with a monograph titled, "Die Corrosions-Anatomie und ihre Ergebnisse" (1873: »» ; GM-425), a scholarly tour de force illustrated with 18 chromolithographs—but no photographs! In that book, Hyrtl referenced a catalog he published in 1865 with descriptions of 300 corrosion casts of the ear, pulled from vertebrates ranging in size from mouse to elephant, all archived and for sale at his museum in Vienna. As he did with Voltolini's technique, Rüdinger acquired first hand knowledge of Hyrtl's methods which he then adapted and improved, e.g. devising a casting medium infused with balsam resin that was more durable than white wax alone. Colorants diluted in copaiba oil were added and the completed casts given a gloss with a solution of glycerine and acetic acid.
Rüdinger released his atlas in three separate parts (Liefergangen), each part comprised of photographs mounted on printed boards, paired with folio sheets of descriptive text (legends). Title pages were pasted onto cover boards that were fastened together with string ties, the same portfolio format he used for his atlas on peripheral nerves. Subscribers could choose to bind the three parts into one volume, or instead, keep the plates and legends loose to serve as reference material alongside a dissection, or passed around in the lecture halls. Plates and text are unpaginated, with headers indicating the plate numbers. The prospectus states that the photographs are, for the most part, unretouched except to add dotted lines and figure numbers, and to adjust chiaroscuro, "[..] um auf dem positiven Bilde die erwünschte Vertheilung von Licht und Schatten zu gewinnen." However, the photographs of frozen sections illustrating the two subsequent releases are proof prints, worked over by an artist's hand and then reshot. Rüdinger was intimate with the photographic process and designed a pivoting platen to hold his preparations on black velvet for shooting. He published his device in a journal article wherein he addressed the depth inversion problem his device corrected, caused by misplaced lighting (1875: »»). Rüdinger's photographs outlived his descriptions and can be found illustrating anatomies well into the twentieth century. His photographic atlas provided the template for ones published later. Specific to the ear, they include the works of his student, Friedrich Bezold (1878), who substituted colophonium for his injection medium, Randall and Morse (1887: »»), Friedrich Schoennemann (1907: »»), and of course, Clarence Blake, who translated Rudinger's first Liefergang into English and added one of his own preparations and photograph (1874: »»). Rüdinger's labors advanced knowledge of the morphology and physiology of the Eustachian tube, first by accurately describing a supplemental lumen that remains open to vent and equalize pressure within the tube (1865). Plate 12 of the first Liefergang delineates the features of this duct which he named the safety tube (Sicherheitsröhre). And second, he accurately described the lymphatic tissue surrounding the lateral pharyngeal walls of the Eustachian (1870). Rüdinger also identified the incudomalleolar meniscus which he called "annulus fibrosus," thereby establishing the ossicles were "true" joints (München, 1870: NLM-10400021070 ; 1873: »»). Not including the English translation of his atlas, Rüdinger published 8 monographs (§) and numerous papers on the anatomy of the inner ear:
