The ear : its anatomy, physiology, and diseases : a practical treatise for the use of medical students and practitioners / by Charles H. Burnett.

  • Burnett, Charles H. (Charles Henry), 1842-1902.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ear : its anatomy, physiology, and diseases : a practical treatise for the use of medical students and practitioners / by Charles H. Burnett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    It must be borne in mind, liowever, that inflammation of the external periosteum may be associated with deeper inflammation in the mastoid cavity. 2. Congestion and Inflammation of the Mucous Membrane of the Mastoid Cells.—A simple congestion of tlie mastoid cells may coexist with a tympanic inflammation. The pain may not be referred to the mastoid in all cases, though usually the jDain is thus referred, and there is noted some swelling OA'er the mastoid. This congestive process may readily yield to treatment or even undergo resolution. If not, there may ensue a deposition of a reddish, pulpy material, as shown by A. H. Buck,' followed by suppuration, caries, and necrosis in and about tiie mastoid cavitj-. In some instances after the congestive stage has been fully established, instead of an active inflammation, there ensues a subacute process in the mastoid cells, analogous to the chronic catarrh supervening upon a severe congestion of the middle ear. It was noted, when alluding to inflammatory processes in the middle ear, that although a congestion in some instances was followed by destructive suppui-ation, in others it was succeeded by the more conservative and sclerotic process known as chronic catarrhal thickening or proliferation. An analogous process may succeed the congestive stage in an inflammatory process in the mastoid cavity, and lead to thicken- ing of the mucous membrane covering the bony septa between the mastoid cells, and to an hyperostosis of the latter. That such a slow and insidious process may occur in the middle ear and mastoid cavity seems probable from the cheesy accumulations almost invariably found in the worst cases of necrosis of the mastoid cells and temporal bone. 3. Carious Inflammation of the Mastoid Cells.—Leaving out of consideration those extraordinary cases of acute inflammation of the mastoid cells, in a jDreviously entirely healthy ear, it may be stated that after a purulent inflammation has existed for a longer or shorter time in the middle ear, an acute and virulent inflammatory process seems to be superadded to the chronic process already fastened on the organ of hearing. This acute stage in the disease already existing in the mucous membrane of the middle ear and mastoid cells, is analogous to a similar ' Archives of Oph. and Otol., vol. iii., 1873.