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	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In the June 2000 issue of the ARCHIVES, Gnuechtel et al¹ present late effects of topical anesthetics on the healing of guinea pig tympanic membranes (TMs) after myringotomy. The conclusion is that no significant differences can be detected between the various anesthetics 6 months after application and myringotomy. These results are very much consistent with those documented earlier after application of local anesthetics without myringotomy.²

In this article¹ it is noted that the guinea pig TM was chosen for the study because of its resemblance to the human TM. I would like to point out that in 1991, my colleague and I³ published an article in which we compared the structure of the human, guinea pig, and rat TMs. We were able to show a closer resemblance between rat and human TM than between guinea pig and human TM structure. In contrast, the structure (eg, the organization) of the collagenous . . . [Full Text of this Article]