In 1800, the year of his election as Surgeon to Guy's Hospital (London), and the following year, Astley Cooper presented two communications to the Royal Society based on his tympanic membrane observations and his treatment of certain forms of deafness by myringotomy. For these contributions he was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. The first paper concerned itself with the effect of a perforated tympanic membrane on hearing. Contrary to the then accepted opinion, Cooper found the patient to have excellent hearing. The second paper reported on myringotomy in patients who appeared to lack sufficient atmospheric pressure within the tympanic cavity because of closure of the eustachian tube. The relevance of Cooper's observations 184 years ago is of some significance in relation to the practice of modern otology.