RUPTURED EARDRUMS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4561, 17 April 1942, Page 8

RUPTURED EARDRUMS

RESULT OF AIR RAIDS PROTECTIVE METHODS The need for protection of the eardrums during air raids was specially emphasised by Dr. W. J. Hope-Robert-son during a lecture in Wellington to the Trained Nurses’ Association of New Zealand. It had been shown, the Doctor said, that 50 per cent of the casualties in the Barcelona air raids had ruptured ear-drums. Greater protection for the ears was used during the British air raids, but still the proportion of ruptured ear-drums was high, so much so that an injury to the ear, usually in the form of a ruptured ear-drum, could be considered the most common of all the injuries that were likely to arise as the result of air raids.

The best methods of protecting the ears were: (1) The use of ear-plugs, which should fit the individual ear firmly and yet be sufficiently plastic not to inflict any damage to it, should not contain any skin irritant, should not crumble in use and allow the fragments to remain in the ear, should be cheap, and should not render the wearer completely deaf; (2) the application of the palms of the hands to the ears would do in an emergency.