Ádám Politzer

In another series of experiments, Politzer connected two manometers, one placed in the external auditory canal meatus and another in the pharynx, in order to study air movements through the Eustachian tube.

Thus, he worked consecutively with Anton Friedrich Freiherr von Troeltsch (1829–1890) and physiologist Heinrich Müller, in Würzburg; Hermann Helmholtz (1821–1894) in Heidelberg.

He also studied microscopic anatomy of the labyrinth with Albert von Kölliker (1817–1905) in Würzburg, and ear surgery with Joseph Toynbee (1815–1866) in London, England.

He and Gruber received the title of professor extraordinarius in 1870 and were appointed to the rank of a joint directorship to a new clinic in the Vienna General Hospital, in the next year (the first of its kind in the world).

He died 13 years later, in 1920, at the age of 85, celebrated as one of the pioneers of modern otology in the history of medicine, but unfortunately in a poor financial condition, due to the economic crisis in Austria after the country was defeated in the First World War.

He also devised methods and apparatuses to examine the outer ear canal and tympanic membrane (Politzer's otoscope), a speculum and a qualitative test for the function of the Eustachian tube.

The luminous cone of the tympanic membrane is named after him, as well as the Unna–Politzer nevus, a typical birthmark found on the nape of the neck in 25 to 50% of normal persons.