[To Wittmaack's theory of "hearing without the organ of Corti" (author's transl)].

1911 Wittmaack had shown by experiments in cats that the organ of Corti is independent from the cochlear nerve but dependent from a normal internal auditory artery. Similar findings he could observe in his temporal bone collection in cases of acoustic nerve tumors. On the other hand many human cases with the compression phenomenon of the organ of Corti had intact cochlear nerve fibers and neurons, and nearly normal hearing. Thus Wittmaack concluded that some parameters of hearing are transmitted by the nerve endings in the organ of Corti without the haircells. This hypothesis is discussed by means of examples of Wittmaack's temporal bone collection in the light of our present knowledge.