Ossicles

The auditory ossicles serve as a kinematic chain to transmit and amplify (intensify) sound vibrations collected from the air by the ear drum to the fluid-filled labyrinth (cochlea).

The ossicles are, in order from the eardrum to the inner ear (from superficial to deep): the malleus, incus, and stapes, terms that in Latin are translated as "the hammer, anvil, and stirrup".

The malleus then transmits the vibrations, via the incus, to the stapes, and so ultimately to the membrane of the fenestra ovalis (oval window), the opening to the vestibule of the inner ear.

The ossicles give the eardrum a mechanical advantage via lever action and a reduction in the area of force distribution; the resulting vibrations are stronger but don't move as far.

[further explanation needed] There is some doubt as to the discoverers of the auditory ossicles and several anatomists from the early 16th century have the discovery attributed to them with the two earliest being Alessandro Achillini and Jacopo Berengario da Carpi.

[7] The first written description of the malleus and incus was by Berengario da Carpi in his Commentaria super anatomia Mundini (1521),[8] although he only briefly described two bones and noted their theoretical association with the transmission of sound.

[12] The first published description of the stapes came in Pedro Jimeno's Dialogus de re medica (1549)[13] although it had been previously described in public lectures by Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia at the University of Naples as early as 1546.