DEAFNESS, AND THE CARE OF THE EARS. 211 

 DEAFNESS, AND THE CARE OF THE EARS. 



By ABEAM MILLS FANNING, M. D. 



IT is astonishing to realize how little is known by the laity of 

 the simplest rules for the preservation of health. 



It would be amusing if it were not so shocking, because so 

 ignorant, to know of some of the curious remedies used by people 

 otherwise intelligent. Owing to this widespread, dense ignorance 

 of simple medical facts among our people, positive harm is done, 

 irreparable in many instances. 



Our blind asylums contain many cases of what are known to 

 physicians as cases of "preventable blindness" — the sight forever 

 destroyed by the use of some " old woman's remedy," as tea-leaves, 

 for instance, persisted with until damage too great to be success- 

 fully combated by the physician is done to the sight. 



It is the popular idea that the deaf and dumb are always born 

 with that affliction. Of course it is not so. As a rule, there is no 

 radical defect of the organs of phonation ; but children born deaf 

 can not talk because they have never heard and learned any words. 

 Many are the children, blessed with perfect hearing and consequent 

 speech for the first two, three, or four years of their lives, who, in 

 consequence of improper or no attention to their ears during an 

 attack of measles, scarlet fever, or diphtheria, have totally lost 

 all sense of hearing ; and their ability to talk has then gradually 

 diminished and disappeared also. Our deaf and dumb asylums 

 are filled with just such cases of "preventable deafness." 



This popular ignorance of ordinary medical truths can be 

 attributed in great part to the disinclination of reputable physi- 

 cians to write popular articles for the enlightenment of general 

 humanity. Most of what has been written of a medical nature 

 for the general reader has been confined to advertisements of 

 patent medicines. 



Probably the two most important senses are those of seeing 

 and hearing ; and it is of these same two that the least is known 

 by the general public, and that the greatest number of absurdly 

 ridiculous, dangerously improper popular remedies are used. It 

 is the purpose of this writing to correct in some measure this 

 misconception in regard to the ears. 



A recent experiment was made by the writer at one of our 

 large eye and ear hospitals in this city to obtain some approxi- 

 mate idea of the proportion of people who really have perfect 

 hearing among those who believe themselves exempt from any 

 defect of the auditory apparatus. Without previous warning, 

 twenty-five eye patients were selected, care being taken to have 

 n^ne but those who had never suffered from any, even temporary, 



