QUEER THINGS IN PEOPLE'S EARS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 10, 27 June 1884, Page 25

QUEER THINGS IN PEOPLE'S EARS.

" You would be astonished," said a skilled artist in one of the public eye and ear infirmaries, "at the large number of children who are brought to us in the course of a week to have something removed from their ears that they have foolishly stuck in them, and have been unable to get out again. I have sometimes disposed of ten such cases in an afternoon, and have pulled almost everything out of the human ear that is possible to get in there— shoe-buttons, pieces of slate-pencil, candies and wads of paper. Four times out of five the youngster is old enough to know better ; bat it is a habit they fall into, the seme as biting thcrir nails or scratching their heads. One boy. not yet twelve years old, is almost a weekly visitor here. • • Well,' I said as I saw him come in as usual yesterday afternoon, ' what have you got in there this time?' 'Nawthin'but a bean,' he drawled. Oh, yes ; I took it out. " But I recently met with the most remarkable case of that kind in twenty years ' practice. A young woman of twenty-three came in so deaf that I could hardly make her hear by shouting through a trumpet. After removing a great quantity of wax from her ears I found something metallic. 1 « ' What's this,' I said ; ' have you been putting something in your ear V "'Oh, dear, no,' she said ; * I am not so foolish as that.' " Imagine Her surprise when I pulled out a smooth, round, brass button, with quite a large shank to it. ' This seems to have been in there a great many years,' I said. To my surprise the young woman crouched in the corner in undisguised terror. • ' ' Oh, doctor,' she said. • what is that awful noise V " It was nothing but a wagon rumbling by, but I instantly saw what the trouble was. Her hearing had become normal when I removed that button, and she was frightened and bewildered at the jumble of confusing sounds. The ticking of the clock, chirping of the canary or dripping of water distressed her, and the rustle of her own silk dress made her start with. fear. I sent one of the assistants home with her in a carriage, and he said that the. clatter in the street so distracted her that he was compelled to hold her in her seat. About a week afterward she came in again "— " And wanted that button put back, I suppose," interrupted the reporter. " Oh, no ; she was brimming over with happiness, though for a day or two she was afraid to leave the house. But she told me about that button. ' When I was about eight years old,' she said, ' I wan sent to a village church in New England with my grandmother. The sermon was always long and tiresome, and I used to amuse myself by pulling at the brass buttons on my cloak. One of them came off one Sunday, and I occupied myself for some time putting it in my ear and shaking it out again. Suddenly I felt it sink away in there, and I could not get it out. I was afraid to tell my grandmother at the time, and soon afterward forgot it. At ten years of age I began to grow deaf, and have been getting worse ever since, but I never once thought of that button until you removed it." "Do grown people," asked the reporter, " ever come to you with things in their ears ?" " Frequently, but in most cases it is through no fault of their own. I know one man, a butcher, who conies here regularly in the summer time to haye flies removed from his ears. I have taken out six at one time for him. How ever they get there I don't know. He says they fly in ; but they don't fly out, I'm sure of that. A man called me out of bed one night to get a Croton bug out of his ear. Now, a water bug will never back. He must either turn arouud or go straight ahead. This fellow had crawled into the man's ear, and, not finding room enough to turn around, went ahead. He was pawing away with his feelers on the (drum, causing the poor man fearful agony. Men employed in tanneries often get a peculiar-looking worm in their ears, which is no small trouble to remove." — Nero York Times.