Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [334]
and even adults, have held grasshoppers, crickets, or lady-birds to their ears in order to more attentively listen to the noise, and while in this position the insects have escaped and penetrated the auditory canal. Insects often enter the ears of persons reposing in the fields with the ear to the ground. Fabricius Hildanus speaks of a cricket penetrating the ear during sleep. Calhoun mentions an instance of disease of the ear which he found was due to the presence of several living maggots in the interior of the ear. The patient had been sleeping in a horse stall in which were found maggots similar to those extracted from his ear. An analogous instance was seen in a negro in the Emergency Hospital, Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1894; and many others are recorded. The insects are frequently removed only after a prolonged lodgment.
D'Aguanno gives an account of two instances of living larvae of the musca sarcophaga in the ears of children. In one of the cases the larvae entered the drum-cavity through a rupture in the tympanic membrane. In both cases the maggots were removed by forceps. Haug has observed a tic (ixodes ricinus) in the ear of a lad of seventeen. The creature was killed by a mercuric-chlorid solution, and removed with a probe.
There is a common superstition that centipedes have the faculty of entering the ear and penetrating the brain, causing death. The authors have knowledge of an instance in which three small centipedes were taken from the ear of a policeman after remaining there three days; during this time they caused excruciating pain, but there was no permanent injury. The Ephemerides contains instances in which, while yet living, worms, crickets, ants, and beetles have all been taken from the ear. In one case the entrance of a cricket in the auditory canal was the cause of death. Martin gives an instance in which larvae were deposited in the ear. Stalpart van der Wiel relates an instance of the lodgment of a living spider in the ear.
Far more common than insects are inanimate objects as foreign bodies in the ear, and numerous examples are to be found in literature. Fabricius Hildanus tells of a glass ball introduced into the auditory canal of a girl of ten, followed by headache, numbness on the left side, and after four or five years epileptic seizures, and atrophy of the arm. He extracted it and the symptoms immediately ceased. Sabatier speaks of an abscess of the brain caused by a ball of paper in the ear; and it is quite common for persons in the habit of using a tampon of cotton in the meatus to mistake the deep entrance of this substance for functional derangement, and many cases of temporary deafness are simply due to forgetfulness of the cause. A strange case is reported in a girl of fourteen, who lost her tympanum from a profuse otorrhea, and who substituted an artificial tympanum which was, in its turn, lost by deep penetration, causing augmentation of the symptoms, of the cause of which the patient herself seemed unaware. Sometimes artificial otoliths are produced by the insufflation of various powders which become agglutinated, and are veritable foreign bodies. Holman tells of a negro, aged thirty-five. whose wife poured molten pewter in his ear while asleep. It was removed, but total deafness was the result.
Alley mentions a New Orleans wharf laborer, in whose ear was poured some molten lead; seventeen months afterward the lead was still occupying the external auditory meatus. It is quite remarkable that the lead should have remained such a length of time without causing meningeal inflammation. There was deafness and palsy of that side of the face. A fungous growth occupied the external portion of the ear; the man suffered pain and discharge from the ear, and had also great difficulty in closing his right eyelid. Morrison mentions an alcoholic patient of forty who, on June 6, 1833, had nitric acid poured in her right ear. There were no headache, febrile symptoms, stupor, or vertigo. Debility alone was present. Two weeks after the injury paralysis began on the right side,
D'Aguanno gives an account of two instances of living larvae of the musca sarcophaga in the ears of children. In one of the cases the larvae entered the drum-cavity through a rupture in the tympanic membrane. In both cases the maggots were removed by forceps. Haug has observed a tic (ixodes ricinus) in the ear of a lad of seventeen. The creature was killed by a mercuric-chlorid solution, and removed with a probe.
There is a common superstition that centipedes have the faculty of entering the ear and penetrating the brain, causing death. The authors have knowledge of an instance in which three small centipedes were taken from the ear of a policeman after remaining there three days; during this time they caused excruciating pain, but there was no permanent injury. The Ephemerides contains instances in which, while yet living, worms, crickets, ants, and beetles have all been taken from the ear. In one case the entrance of a cricket in the auditory canal was the cause of death. Martin gives an instance in which larvae were deposited in the ear. Stalpart van der Wiel relates an instance of the lodgment of a living spider in the ear.
Far more common than insects are inanimate objects as foreign bodies in the ear, and numerous examples are to be found in literature. Fabricius Hildanus tells of a glass ball introduced into the auditory canal of a girl of ten, followed by headache, numbness on the left side, and after four or five years epileptic seizures, and atrophy of the arm. He extracted it and the symptoms immediately ceased. Sabatier speaks of an abscess of the brain caused by a ball of paper in the ear; and it is quite common for persons in the habit of using a tampon of cotton in the meatus to mistake the deep entrance of this substance for functional derangement, and many cases of temporary deafness are simply due to forgetfulness of the cause. A strange case is reported in a girl of fourteen, who lost her tympanum from a profuse otorrhea, and who substituted an artificial tympanum which was, in its turn, lost by deep penetration, causing augmentation of the symptoms, of the cause of which the patient herself seemed unaware. Sometimes artificial otoliths are produced by the insufflation of various powders which become agglutinated, and are veritable foreign bodies. Holman tells of a negro, aged thirty-five. whose wife poured molten pewter in his ear while asleep. It was removed, but total deafness was the result.
Alley mentions a New Orleans wharf laborer, in whose ear was poured some molten lead; seventeen months afterward the lead was still occupying the external auditory meatus. It is quite remarkable that the lead should have remained such a length of time without causing meningeal inflammation. There was deafness and palsy of that side of the face. A fungous growth occupied the external portion of the ear; the man suffered pain and discharge from the ear, and had also great difficulty in closing his right eyelid. Morrison mentions an alcoholic patient of forty who, on June 6, 1833, had nitric acid poured in her right ear. There were no headache, febrile symptoms, stupor, or vertigo. Debility alone was present. Two weeks after the injury paralysis began on the right side,