EAR TROUBLE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3728, 10 December 1927, Page 1

EAR TROUBLE.

ADVICE TO BATHERS,

KEEPING OUT WATER

The sea-bathing season always produces the usual crop of trouble in the ears ,of bathers, states “The Lancet.” This authority examines briefly the causation and possible prevention of aural diseases due to bathing. It says:

“Winter can reach the ear and produce harmful effects either through the external auditory meatus or by way of the Eustachian tube. Water getting into the exter-

nal can. produces a disagreeable sensation, as everybody knows from experience, but quickly runs out again from a clean and healthy meatus and, ordinarily, produces no further' trouble. If, however, the ear contains much wax, this im- ! bibes the moisture, swells up and blocks the canal; ‘water in the ear/ which persists long enough for advice to be sought, can usually be cured by its removal. The pressure of the swollen wax readily produces inflammation of the canal; those with excessive secretion should have it removed before their seaside holiday. In addition, people who have a tendency to eczema often suffer if they allow water to get into the ears, and while to some salt water seems to be moer irritating than fresh, the water of public swimming baths is apt to be heavily infected with micro-organisms. Unskilful diving from a height may cause rupture of the drum by meehancal force; but in general it can be said the occasional entry of water into a healthy meatus is harmiess. Mammals, such as the watershrew and seal, possess a mechanism for closing the meatus. The commonest cause of serious ear-di-sease from bathing is the entrance of water into an old, often dry and quiescent, perforation of the drum, and this may produce a very severe ,suppuration with all its attendant conqilications. “Patients with perforated drums should never be allowed to bathe without a completely efficient means of preventing the entry of water into the ear. Ordinary cotton-wool is .useless; sheep’s wool, being greasy, is better; a properly fitting rubber plug coated with vaseline is fairly reliable, but most satisfactory of all is a plugging material made of wax mixed with fibre, which may be had from instrument makers. A rubber bathing-cap with ear-flaps should be worn over any plug. There remains, however, the second route of infection, due to the entrance of water through the Eustachian tube, the inflammation varying from a mild tubal catarrh to severe otitis and mastoiditis. The chief factors which favour entry of water into the tubes are violent blowing of the nose after swimming, and swallowing while under water. Dr. George B. M'Auliffe, of New York, recently sent out a questionaire to a number of prominent amateur swimmers of the New York Athletic Club, in an attempt to elicit why it is that this accident only occasionally happens, and how it is that water gets into the ears. He got replies from twelve swimmers of from five to thirty-nine years’ experience, and the answers were very various; only one thought diving injurious, and two of the three who blow the nose after emerging had had ear inflammations. There was an impression that salt water was more injurious than fresh, probably because it encouraged nasal, secretion and blowing of the nose. Dr. M'Auliff'e’s conclusions seem sound —namely, that in a healthy ear the use of plugs are unnecessary; that the only time that a plug is needed is when there is an open perforation or when the skin of the canal is irritated by the water; that-bath-ers should not swallow while swimming, and that they should let the water drain from the nose and avoid blowing on coming out of the water. 'lf blowing the nose and swallowing are avoided, no ear complication will occur.”