Contributions to aural surgery / [W.R. Wilde].

  • William Wilde
Date:
1844-1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to aural surgery / [W.R. Wilde]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/200 page 12
    charges from the external auditory passages, and of the pre¬ judice existing with regard to their treatment. I suppose there is scarcely a member of the Profession in any of its various branches who has not been constantly applied to by patients, young and old, of both sexes, of every age, and among all ranks and grades of society, labouring under dis¬ charges from the external ear—one or both—more or less affecting the hearing, in some cases attended with tinnitus au- rium, and in all giving rise to great annoyance and inconve¬ nience, from the dirt and often foetid smell which it occasions. With some this may be of short duration, and with others, the majority of whom are those that present themselves to surgeons practising aural surgery, of many years’ continuance. Indeed one only wonders how sensible men could go through the world apparently unconcerned, with such a loathsome disease about them. Many, it is true, endeavour to conceal the affection, and others are deterred from taking proper advice by the prejudices of their friends, or even their family medical attendants. Let me, in a single instance, illustrate the general progress of a case of aural discharge, by no means imaginative, but presenting as the type of hundreds who daily apply lor advice in these coun¬ tries, where it is a disease of such common occurrence. At the period when the mucus that naturally coats the membrana tympani, and lines the meatus during infancy, has ceased to be secreted—about the time of dentition, or at any other period of childhood—upon the sudden subsidence of pu¬ rulent ophthalmia—during the progress, or as the sequel to any i of the exanthemata—either from the effects of cold, the appear¬ ance of scrofula, an impaired condition of the digestive func¬ tions, or any other of the causes producing inflammation—a child is suddenly attacked (often in the middle of its sleep) with pain in the ear, frequently of the most excruciating character, accom¬ panied by brisk fever, and at times even producing delirium. Or the same symptoms may be present in an adult. What is the treatment generally had recourse to ? Hot oil, turpentine,
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3