In the paper by Yardley et al (this issue, pp 679–684) the authors determined the extent of neuro-otological and psychiatric abnormalities associated with dizziness among working age adults drawn from an epidemiological United Kingdom community sample.

Attempts to define a neurophysiological link between psychiatric disorders and somatic symptoms have concentrated on dizziness for centuries, even before the remarkable group of 19th century scientists (Jan Evangelista Purkyne, Ernst Mach, Josef Breuer, Hermann Helmholtz, and Alexander Crum-Brown) discovered the functions of the labyrinth. The …