The vestibular labyrinth consists of ? ve compartments: the lateral, anterior, and posterior semicircular canals, the utricule, and the saccule. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Robert Barany proposed the caloric test as a clinical test of the lateral semicircular canal. This test enabled clinicians to assess the individual lateral semicircular canal function easily by using the simple method of irrigating the external ear canal with cold or warm water and observing the induced nyst- mus. We believe that the caloric test was a breakthrough in the ? eld of vestibular research....