Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1881 — Ear and Brain. [ARTICLE]

Ear and Brain.

The substance of the following statements with regard to the ear and brain is from a paper in the New York Medical Journal, by. Dr. Andrews, surgeon to the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital, New York.

Ear diseases are much worse than those of the eye. They are a principal cause of deaf mutism. They are tjlso among the most frequent diseases of jhildhood, being developed in diphtheria, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, measles, small-pox, typhoid fever, influenza and tubercular affections of the lungs. Indeed, a simple cold in the head or sore throat rapidly spreads along the mucous membrane of the nostrils and pharynx to that of the ear. Says the late Prof. Clark, of Harvard University, “ So important is proper attention to the ear during and after acute exanthemata (diseases attended with rash) that a physician who treats such cases, and neglects to give this attention, cannot be said to perform his duty to his patient.” But the most serious fact about these diseases grows, out of the very intimate connection between the ear and the £>rain. Most of the bony wall which . contains the internal ear lies in direct contact with the membrane of the brain. Some parts of the wall are so thin as to be transparent. There are also openings through it for the passage of nerves and blood-vessels, and often parts of it are wanting through arrest of development. Hence, purulent inflammations of the ear extend readily" to the brain—the rnoj-P so, the younger the child. These irfay cause similar imflammation of the membranes, inflammation of large veins and abscesses of the brain. Nearly one-half of the latter are due to this cause, chronic inflammation of the ear—showing itself perhaps only in a slight headache—being vastly more dangerous than acute.— Youth’s Companion. The hammer with which John Paul Jones nailed the historic flag to the mast of his ship is owned by a gentleman in Indiana, Pa. This Hammer-ican relic should be placed in the tool chest with the G, W, Mkhet and wise saws of Fnnkte,