Clinician hears a baby crying from a ward describe how the sound was able to travel into clinician pinna into inner ear

1 answer

The clinician, upon hearing a baby crying from a ward, would have experienced the propagation of sound through the different parts of the ear.

First, sound waves are produced by the crying baby. These sound waves are transmitted through the air in the form of mechanical vibrations.

The sound waves then enter the clinician's pinna, which is the visible part of the ear on the outside of the head. The pinna is shaped in a way that helps in the localization and collection of sound waves. As the sound waves enter the pinna, they are directed towards the ear canal.

The ear canal leads to the middle ear, where the sound waves encounter the eardrum, also known as the tympanic membrane. When the sound waves reach the eardrum, they cause it to vibrate.

The vibrations of the eardrum, in turn, cause the small bones in the middle ear, called the ossicles (malleus, incus, and stapes), to move. The ossicles amplify the sound vibrations and transmit them further into the inner ear.

From the middle ear, the amplified vibrations reach the cochlea, which is a spiral-shaped structure in the inner ear. The cochlea contains fluid and tiny hair cells called cilia.

As the vibrations travel through the fluid in the cochlea, they cause the cilia to move. The movement of the cilia generates electrical signals that are transmitted to the brain through the auditory nerve.

Once the electrical signals reach the brain, they are processed, and the clinician perceives the sound of the baby crying.

In summary, the sound of a baby crying from a ward travels through the air, enters the clinician's pinna, passes through the ear canal, causes vibrations of the eardrum, stimulates the ossicles in the middle ear, and finally reaches the cochlea in the inner ear, where it is converted into electrical signals that are interpreted by the brain as the sound of a crying baby.