In the external ear of a child Tansley observed a diamond which
he removed under chloroform. The mother of the child had pushed
the body further inward in her endeavors to remove it and had
wounded the canal. Schmiegelow reports a foreign body forced into
the drum-cavity, followed by rough extraction, great irritation,
tetanus, and death; and there are on record several cases of
fatal meningitis, induced by rough endeavors to extract a body
from the external ear.
In the Therapeutic Gazette, August 15, 1896, there is a
translation of the report of a case by Voss, in which a child of
five pushed a dry pea in his ear. Four doctors spent several days
endeavoring to extract it, but only succeeded in pushing it in
further. It was removed by operation on the fifth day, but
suppuration of the tympanic cavity caused death on the ninth day.
Barclay reports a rare case of ensnared aural foreign body in a
lady, aged about forty years, who, while "picking" her left ear
with a so-called "invisible hair-pin" several hours before the
consultation, had heard a sudden "twang" in the ear, as if the
hair-pin had broken. And so, indeed, it had; for on the instant
she had attempted to jerk it quickly from the ear the sharp
extremity of the inner portion of its lower prong sprang away
from its fellow, penetrated the soft tissues of the floor of the
external auditory canal, and remained imbedded there, the
separated end of this prong only coming away in her grasp.
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