Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/151

Rh injurious to the ear, and ought to be carefully avoided. Those who have followed the previous description will easily understand the reason.

And first, children's ears ought never to be boxed. We have seen that the passage of the ear is closed by a thin membrane, especially adapted to be influenced by every impulse of the air, and with nothing but the air to support it internally. What, then, can be more likely to injure this membrane than a sudden and forcible compression of the air in front of it? If any one designed to break or overstretch the membrane, he could scarcely devise a more effective means than to bring the hand suddenly and forcibly down upon the passage of the ear, thus driving the air violently before it, with no possibility for its escape but by the membrane giving way. And far too often it does give way, especially if, from any previous disease, it has been weakened. Many children are made deaf by boxes on the ear in this way. Nor is this the only way: if there is one thing which does the nerve of hearing more harm than almost any other, it is a sudden jar or shock. Children and grown persons alike may be entirely deafened by falls or heavy blows upon the head. And boxing the ears produces a similar effect, though more slowly and in less degree. It tends to dull the sensibility of the nerve, even if it does not hurt the membrane. I knew a pitiful case, once, of a poor youth who died from a terrible disease of the ear. He had had a discharge from it since he was a child. Of course his hearing had been dull: and what had happened was that his father had often boxed his ear for inattention! Most likely that boxing on the ear, diseased as it was, had much to do with his dying. And this brings me to the second point. Children should never be blamed for being inattentive, until it has been found out whether they are not a little deaf. This is easily done by placing them at a few yards' distance, and trying whether they can understand what is said to them in a rather low tone of voice. Each ear should be tried, while the other is stopped by the finger. I do not say that children are never guilty of inattention, especially to that which they do not particularly wish to hear; but I do say that very many children are blamed and punished for inattention when they really do not hear. And there is nothing at once more cruel and more hurtful to the character of children than to be found fault with for what is really their misfortune. Three things should be remembered here: 1. That slight degrees of deafness, often lasting only for a time, are very common among children, especially during or after colds. 2. That a slight deafness, which does not prevent a person from hearing when he is expecting to be spoken to, will make him very dull to what he is not expecting; and, 3. That there is a kind of deafness in which a person can hear pretty well while listening, but is really very hard of hearing when not listening.

The chief avoidable cause of deafness is catching cold, and