NO. 6 EAR EXOSTOSES HRDLICKA 3 



Seligmann (1864),^ of Vienna, reports finding ear exostoses in 

 five out of six highland " Inca " skulls with Aymara deformation 

 (four out of five in his 1870 account). All the skulls with the ex- 

 ostoses were males, the remaining one was a female. Seligmann con- 

 cluded that these abnormalities did not occur in the Peruvian " flat- 

 heads " ; that the circular deformation of his specimens was not the 

 cause, for similarly deformed skulls from elsewhere did not show the 

 tumors; that the exostoses were restricted to males above 16 years of 

 age ; and that they were caused by an extension of an inflammatory 

 process brought on by irritation due to the piercing of the ears, force- 

 ful enlargement of the openings for large ear ornaments, and the car- 

 rying of such heavy ornaments — -at and after the initiation ceremonies 

 of the Incaic youth. 



The next report of anthropological interest on these abnormalities 

 is that of Welcker (1864), who opposes Seligmann's views as to the 

 causation of the tumors.^ He found them in two out of nine crania of 

 Marquesas Islanders of the Barnard Davis collection and also in an 

 undeformed skull of a Fox Indian. 



Toynbee (i860) gives the first statistical datum on the frequency 

 of these growths in a given population — in 1,013 diseased ears of 

 the English he found ear exostoses in 14, or 1.03 percent of the tem- 

 porals. 



The year 1874 brings to light the first two American contributions 

 to the subject, one by a physical anthropologist of note, the other by 

 a physician. Jeft'ries Wyman (1874), Curator of the Peabody Mu- 

 seum, reports having found the exostoses in 8 out of 330 crania from 

 Ancon, Peru; and Blake informs Wyman (Wyman, 1874), that he 

 found the growths in about 5 of 1,000 cases (or 0.5 percent) of 

 American Whites treated for diseases of the ear. There is not much 

 discussion, but Wyman states that the growths " vary in size from a 

 pin's head to that of the whole calibre of the canal." 



In his Thesaurus Craniorum (London, 1867) and its supplementary 

 volume (1874), J. Barnard Davis refers to the presence of auditory 

 exostoses, among the crania of his collection, in the two skulls re- 

 ported by Welcker, in another specimen from the Marquesas Islands, 



' One or two authors give the credit of the first report of an ear exostosis 

 in an American Indian to Zschokke (tJber eine merkwiirdige bisher unbekannte 

 krankhafte Veranderung an Menschenknochen aus Peru. Wiirzburger Inaug. — 

 Diss., Arau, 1845), but this author reports on peculiar multiple exostoses in 

 six old Peruvian bones without touching on those of the skull. 



^According to Virchow (Klin. Wochenschr., 1893, p. 636), Seligmann himself 

 in later years gave up his former opinion. 



