BOXES ON THE EAR.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5456, 21 September 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

BOXES ON THE EAR.

(From the Lancet of July 6.)

The blindness of the late King of Hanover was occasioned, it is understood, by an accidental, but by no means violent, blow upon the eye. Scarcely a day passes, we believe, without some schoolmaster (or schoolfellow in natural imitation of his master) giving a lad a smart “box" upon tho ear. Few persons would be bold enough to choose the eye as a part upon which it was expedient to inflict a violent blow by way of moral education, but there is apparently no end to the numbers who select an organ upon which violence is liable to be attended with much more dangerous results. For not only is deafness caused by “boxes” which rupture (as they commonly do) the drum of the ear, but the Infiimmatiou of the internal cavity which is so frequent a result, may be followed, years afterwards, perhaps, by disease of the bone, giving rise to abscess of the brain, and having a fatal termination. Medical men alone can be fully aware bow fruitful a sonree of Buffering and danger is represented by the box; upon the ear. We are informed, for example, of two oasis ' under observation at the present moment, in which schoolboys have been the victims of such an assault. Surely schoolmasters onght to have learned, long ere this, the danger of a mode of personal chastisement that has apparently usurped the place of others, which, if more disgusting, were not attended with an equal amount of peril