Lucae's Springy Pressure Probe to Mobilize the Ossicular Chain: Rise and Fall of an Ingenious Instrument.

Objectives/hypotheses: In 1884, Johann Constantin August Lucae (1835-1911), a German otologist from Berlin, introduced a new "method to mechanically treat chronic troubles of the mobility of the hearing organ transmission apparatus." It consisted in the use of a springy pressure probe to directly mobilize the handle of the malleus. The aim of this study is to trace the invention, clinical use, technological modifications, and ultimate extinction of this instrument.