66 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 93 



were rare in the Egyptians who were great water lovers ; and that 

 the Malays and the boys of some other maritime groups, including 

 certain Whites, were great swimmers and divers without being par- 

 ticularly troubled with ear exostoses. 



Notwithstanding the above, sea water is undoubtedly capable of 

 causing chronic ear troubles, and these may conceivably act, where 

 there is a tendency to the exostoses, as exciting or favoring causes. 



ABSCESSES, FURUNCLES 



Cassells (1877) regarded some ear exostoses as secondary to a 

 subperiosteal abscess of the mastoid. 



Jacquemart (1889, p. 193) states that after a cure of an ear furuncle 

 or abscess, it is not surprising to see a development of one of these 

 tumors ; and Sabroux (1901, p. 29) makes the same assertion. 



POLYPS 



From evidence adduced by others, Kessel (1889, p. 289) is satisfied 

 that ear polyps may ossify and thus turn into bony tumors. Pritchard 

 (1891) attests that the origin of ear exostoses in some cases may be 

 traced " even to the actual ossification of the polypi." Sabroux (1901, 

 p. 31) quotes Klotz, Bezold. Patterson, Cassells, Hedinger, and Cook 

 as having seen bony tissue in ear polyps, seemingly parting from the 

 bony part of the canal and developing preferentially into the im- 

 plantation of the tumor (Politzer). Tod (1909) reports a case where 

 a single exostosis developed " from the floor of the auditory canal " 

 2 years after the removal of a polyp from that ear. Dahlstrom (1923. 

 p. 216) reports that ossification of tar polyps had been observed by 

 Cocks and Noltenius. 



Remarks. — These cases, if correctly reported, would seem to differ 

 substantially from ear exostoses. 



MECHANICAL CAUSES AND TRAUMATISM 



The first to call attention to the probable influence of mechanical 

 causes on the development of the ear exostoses was Seligmann ( 1864), 

 who advanced the theory that in ancient Peru the growths were due 

 to the mechanical irritation produced in the Incaic youth, about the 

 time of puberty, by loading the ears with heavy ornaments. This idea 

 is met with also here and there in later authors, and even Virchow 

 (1889, p. 395) inclines to the view that such may have been the 

 cause of the growths in some cases. Blake (1880) found it sugges- 

 tive that most of the growths occurred in the posterior wall of the 

 meatus, " the wall most exposed to violence." 



