Unpublished letters from Prosper Menière: a personal silhouette.

It is ironic that, while the term "Menière's disease" is becoming more and more well known today, published accounts of a biographic nature are scarce for the man for whom the eponym was devised: Prosper Menière. As we are obliged to turn to only a few avenues for this sort of information, we are fortunate to discover new sources of original materials to augment the published account of the life and character of Menière the man. One such unpublished source that has recently come to light is a cache of letters from the pen of Menière that was preserved for the period extending from the early 1850s up to the time shortly preceding the author's death a decade later; and it is these letters that form the basis of this inquiry into the mind and character of Menière, the brilliant otologist and man of letters. This particular body of letters, while being for the most part of an admittedly social nature, is of particular interest not only for the occasional references Menière makes to the ear or to his deaf-mute patients, but also because of Menière's epistolary style, and because of their content in general. For this reason the letters have been analyzed primarily with an eye to three categories of interest. The first category is the professional life of Menière, which for the purpose of this paper will be understood to comprise his professional work as a physician, his mention of his patients, of deaf-mutes and their treatment, of his writings in general, and of other pertinent aspects of his medical involvement.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)