Report of one hundred cases of diseases of the ear / by J.J. Kirk Duncanson.

Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of one hundred cases of diseases of the ear / by J.J. Kirk Duncanson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    noise in the ears on using their handkerchiefs to clear the nostrils. They were also the subjects of subacute catarrh of the eustachian tubes and tympana, the faucial orifice specially becoming closed when the patients suffered from cold. In the case of a young lad, aged 16, the membrana tympani of the left ear was represented by a tensely-stretched, plain, whitish, non-lustrous membrane, without any of the markings of the normal drumhead. It was situated not nearly so deep in the external auditory meatus as in a healthy ear. The meatus is narrow and straight. There is a cicatrix with a depression over the mastoid. In the right ear, a purulent discharge coming from the tympanum escaped by the meatus through a perforated, very deeply situated drumhead. The bony part of this external auditory meatus is narrowed from hyperostosis. The lad, a member of the Edinburgh Industrial Brigade, believes that the cause of his ear-disease was scarlet fever when very young. The hearing distance after being under treatment for some time was E.: H. D.: W. = It; L.: H. D.: W. = Where R. means right ear, H. D. the hearing distance, and W. the watch, the denominator of the fraction indi- cates the number of inches at which the watch can be heard in health; the numerator, the actual distance in the case under examination. The application of the air-douche improves the H. D. in the right ear. Two cases of disease of the mastoid bone, both occurring in married women, one of long standing, and will probably continue until a sequestrum of bone comes away, which the patient refuses to have removed by operative interference. The second case came under our notice before much injury to the bone had taken place. The pain in and about theear had been treated as most affections of the ear are: Syringe the ear, and if that does not do, apply a blister behind it, then it is not good to interfere too much with the ears. In this case the patient had been passing sleepless nights, with a constant overpowering pain, most intense where the auricle unites with the mastoid, and deep into the meatus. The patient felt feverish and had no appetite. She felt constrained of herself to try something to obtain relief, and applied leeches over the mastoid behind the auricles, with hot fomentations afterwards, which gave her so much ease that she was able to venture out of doors. The pain returned (she thinks she got cold), when she continued applying constantly hot fomentations whilst going about her household duties, and on some purulent matter coming from the meatus she got some relief. The patient came to us two days after the discharge from the meatus began. After washing out the purulent discharge from the external auditory meatus, on making an examination witii the frontal (laryngoscopic) mirror and speculum, one could see pus coming from a small fistulous opening situated about the middle of the back wall of the meatus, and about ^ in. external to the membrana tympani. On moving the auricle the patient complained of pain, and on pressing on the textures over the mastoid, the patient felt pain deep in the meatus, and one could