THE HYGIENE OF THE EAR. 141 



injurious to the ear, and ought to be carefully avoided. Those who 

 have followed the previous description will easily understand the 

 reason. 



And first, children's ears ought never to be boxed. We have seen 

 that the passage of the ear is closed by a thin membrane, especially 

 adapted to be influenced by every impulse of the air, and with nothing 

 but the air to support it internally. What, then, can be more likely 

 to injure this membrane than a sudden and forcible compression of the 

 air in front of it ? If any one designed to break or overstretch the 

 membrane, he could scarcely devise a more effective means than to 

 bring the hand suddenly and forcibly down upon the passage of the 

 ear, thus driving the air violently before it, with no possibility for its 

 escape but by the membrane giving way. And far too often it does 

 give way, especially if, from any previous disease, it has been weak 

 ened. Many children are made deaf by boxes on the ear in this way. 

 Nor is this the only way : if there is one thing which does the nerve 

 of hearing more harm than almost any other, it is a sudden jar or 

 shock. Children and grown persons alike may be entirely deafened by 

 falls or heavy blows upon the head. And boxing the ears produces 

 a similar effect, though more slowly and in less degree. It tends to 

 dull the sensibility of the nerve, even if it does not hurt the membrane. 

 I knew a pitiful case, once, of a poor youth who died from a terrible 

 disease of the ear. He had had a discharge from it since he was a 

 child. Of course his hearing had been dull : and what had happened 

 was that his father had often boxed his ear for inattention! Most 

 likely that boxing on the ear, diseased as it was, had much to do with 

 his dying. And this brings me to the second point. Children should 

 never be blamed for being inattentive, until it has been found out 

 whether they are not a little deaf. This is easily done by placing them 

 at a few yards' distance, and trying whether they can understand 

 what is said to them in a rather low tone of voice. Each ear should 

 be tried, while the other is stopped by the finger. I do not say that 

 children are never guilty of inattention, especially to that which they 

 do not particularly wish to hear; but I do say that very many children 

 are blamed and punished for inattention when they really do not hear. 

 And there is nothing at once more cruel and more hurtful to the char- 

 acter of children than to be found fault with for what is really their 

 misfortune. Three things should be remembered here: 1. That slight 

 degrees of deafness, often lasting only for a time, are very common 

 among children, especially during or after colds. 2. That a slight 

 deafness, which does not prevent a person from hearing when he is 

 expecting to be spoken to, will make him very dull to what he is not 

 expecting ; and, 3. That there is a kind of deafness in which a person 

 can hear pretty well while listening, but is really very hard of hearing 

 when not listening. 



The chief avoidable cause of deafness is catching cold, and what- 



