Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1884 — Care for the Ear. [ARTICLE]

Care for the Ear.

We do not think that most people sufficiently realize the importance of caring for the ear. In the case of the celebrated Dean Swift, whose life-long Bufferings were due to a simple cold taken before his twentieth year, there were ringing in his ears, deafness, headache, nausea, vertigo or giddiness, with staggering gait. But there are multitudes of cases in which the trouble is confined to simple deafness, slight at first and hardly noticed, yet steadily increasing with year 3. Every winter thousands lay a foundation for it. The part affected is what is called the “middle ear.” It is sometimes inflamed by cold air striking continuously on the outside, just behind apd below the ear, or penetrating the open cavity. Fashion, which sends young children from over-heated rooms into the winds of winter with the ears wholly unprotected is responsible for many sad cases. When there is a “cold in the head” (nasal catarrh) the inflammation often extends to the Eustachian tubes (the tubes that convey air to the middle ear) and thence into the eat* itself. Sometimes the throat and back of the mouth (pharynx) are inflamed, and the inflammation spreads upward in the same way. An inflammation is often thus extended from the nostrils to the ear by an improper blowing of the nose. One nostril should bo cleared at a time, the other remaining fully open. As the results—not noticed for years —may be increasing discomfort for life, the ears of the young should occasionally be examined by a competent physician. The tendencies to deafness may be checked if taken in time. In the above cases there is a thickening of the membrane tympana (eardrum), which thickening tends to increase with every new cold; or some of the inner inflamed surfaces grow together, and the action of the ear is interfered with, or the Eustachia tube becomes closed. Sometimes the ear-drum is .perforated, the inflammation giving nse to suppuration. —Health and Home.