First, there are orifices where we hear. For the area round the ear is hollow and hears nothing but noise and shouting. But whatever penetrates through the membrane to the brain is clearly heard there. This is the only perforation through the membrane which encloses the brain. At the nostrils there is no (such) opening but a soft area, like sponges. For this reason we hear over a greater distance than we smell.
Footnotes
Hippocrates, Places in Man, edited and translated by Elizabeth M Craik, 1998
Submitted by Ann Dally, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine