BOXING A CHILD'S EARS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 18 April 1901, Page 4

BOXING A CHILD'S EARS.

The fact that the boxing of ears is apt to set up serious middle ear disease has (says the Medical Press) long been accepted as a canon in medicine. The blow either ruptures the drum of the car or sets up inflammation of some part of the auditory passages, septic processes intervene, and middle ear suppuration is established. As already hinted, this knowledge lias long been a commonplace possession both of lay and of medical folk in our own country. It has only lately, however, received a practical recognition in Austria, where the absurd and childish practice of boxing the ears of soldiers has hitherto been in vogue. Instructions have recently been issued by the general in command of one of the army corps prohibiting both commissioned and non-commissioned officers in future from resorting to that degrading form of punishment. The reason given for issuing the order was the alarming increase of ear diseases in the army. Of a truth, apart from sentiment, and viewing tilings in the cold, dry light of experience, it were better to lash a soldier to the triangle and give him forty strokes with a cat-o'-nine-tails than to box his ears. The one hurts and leaves a scar; the other permanently cripples and perchance kills.