Dr. Carl Olof Siggesson Nylén (born in 1882 in Uppsala, died in 1978 in Djursholm) was a Swedish otological surgeon who pioneered the operating microscope (Dohlman 1969; Kobayashi et al. 2022; Mudry 2000; Uluc et al. 2009).
Nylén’s design was eventually improved upon and replaced in 1922 with the binocular otomicroscope developed by Dr. Gunnar Holmgren (1875 – 1954) (Kriss and Kriss 1998).
Some commentators (Bae et al. 2022; Strupp et al. 2022) suggest that Nylén probably provided one of the earliest descriptions (Nylén 1924) of what later came to be known as vestibular neuritis.
References
Bae CH, Na HG, Choi YS (2022) Current diagnosis and treatment of vestibular neuritis: a narrative review. J Yeungnam Med Sci 39: 81-88. doi: 10.12701/yujm.2021.01228
Dohlman GF (1969) Carl Olof Nylen and the birth of the otomicroscope and microsurgery. Arch Otolaryngol 90: 813-7. doi: 10.1001/archotol.1969.00770030815025
Kobayashi S, Matsushima T, Sakai T, Matsushima K, Bertalanffy H, Rutka JT (2022) Evolution of microneurosurgical anatomy with special reference to the history of anatomy, surgical anatomy, and microsurgery: historical overview. Neurosurg Rev 45: 253-261. doi: 10.1007/s10143-021-01597-z
Kriss TC, Kriss VM (1998) History of the operating microscope: from magnifying glass to microneurosurgery. Neurosurgery 42: 899-907; discussion 907-8. doi: 10.1097/00006123-199804000-00116
Mudry A (2000) The history of the microscope for use in ear surgery. Am J Otol 21: 877-86.
Nylén CO (1924) Some Cases of Ocular Nystagmus Due to Certain Positions of the Head. Acta Oto-Laryngologica 6: 106-137. doi: 10.3109/00016482409123851
Strupp M, Bisdorff A, Furman J, Hornibrook J, Jahn K, Maire R, Newman-Toker D, Magnusson M (2022) Acute unilateral vestibulopathy/vestibular neuritis: Diagnostic criteria. J Vestib Res 32: 389-406. doi: 10.3233/VES-220201
Uluc K, Kujoth GC, Baskaya MK (2009) Operating microscopes: past, present, and future. Neurosurg Focus 27: E4. doi: 10.3171/2009.6.FOCUS09120
