Ear Diseases in Infancy and Childhood.

Abstract

The statistics which show an infant mortality of from 20 to 25 per cent. before the end of the first year of life are a woeful and terrible comment on the ignorance or carelessness of some one, be it parent, family physician, modern circumstances or environment. Wherever the blame belongs it must soon be known, and a remedy applied which will stop such a sacrifice of human life. Such a record does not comport with modern achievement and advancement, and can not long be tolerated as one of the failures of medicine. In this percentage there is a large, too large, ratio of ear conditions presented as a causal or complicating element in the cause of death. The ear conditions which are most frequently met with in infancy and childhood are acute middle-ear suppuration with or without its more or less severe and serious complications, impacted cerumen, foreign bodies, furunculosis, granulations, eczema. necrosis, polypi, meningitis, extradural abscess, cerebral abscess and traumatisms. Of these, it is well known, acute and chronic middleear suppuration are by far the most frequent and most important. It occurs much more frequently than all