We wanted to ascertain whether a physiological horizontal vestibular spontaneous nystagmus is existent, or whether the spontaneous and positional nystagmus seen in clinically healthy persons in the electronystagmogram -- when fixation had been excluded completely -- was always the result of earlier damages to the vestibular system (Jatho). For this purpose we tried to detect a spontaneous and positional nystagmus in 102 healthy persons from 6 age groups (17 each) between 11 and 70 years of age. When the ENG was registered with open eyes in darkness, 63 out of the 102 test persons had a horizontal spontaneous or positional nystagmus, however, under the Frenzel glasses there was a nystagmus in only 2 out of these test persons. With open eyes in darkness, the frequency and intensity was the same in all age groups. With this, we believe to have proved that a physiological horizontal vestibular nystagmus does exist. We share Kornhuber's opinion that the examination with the Frenzel glasses in a dark room, together with the head shaking test and positional test, at the present time represents the best method for differentiating between physiological and pathological spontaneous nystagmus.

No abstract