ury de Clermont mentions a woman of twenty-five who consulted him
for removal of a pin which was in her right ear. Vain attempts by some
of her lay-friends to extract the pin had only made matters worse. The
pin was directed transversely, and its middle part touched the membrane
tympanum. The mere touching of the pin caused the woman intense pain;
even after etherization it was necessary to construct a special
instrument to extract it. She suffered intense cephalalgia and other
signs of meningitis; despite vigorous treatment she lost consciousness
and died shortly after the operation.

Winterbotham reports an instance in which a cherry-stone was removed
from the meatus auditorius after lodgment of upward of sixty years.
Marchal de Calvi mentions intermittent deafness for forty years, caused
by the lodgment of a small foreign body in the auditory canal. There is
an instance in which a carious molar tooth has been tolerated in the
same location for forty years.

Albucasius, Fabricius Hildanus, Pare, and others, have mentioned the
fact that seeds and beans have been frequently seen to increase in
volume while lodged in the auditory canal. Tulpius speaks of an infant,
playing with his comrades, who put a cherry-seed in his ear which he
was not able to extract. The seed increased in volume to such an extent
that it was only by surgical interference that it could be extracted,
and then such serious consequences followed that death resulted. Albers
reports an instance in which a pin introduced into the ear issued from
the pharynx.

Confusion of diagnosis is occasionally noticed in terrified or hysteric
persons. Lowenberg was called to see a child of five who had introduced
a button into his left ear. When he saw the child it complained of all
the pain in the right ear, and he naturally examined this ear first but
found nothing to indicate the presence of a foreign body. He examined
the ear supposed to be healthy and there found the button lying against
the tympanum. This was explained by the fact that the child was so
pained and terrified by the previous explorations of the affected ear
that rather than undergo them again he presented the well ear for
examination. In the British Medical Journal for 1877 is an account of
an unjustified exploration of an ear for a foreign body by an
incompetent physician, who spent a half hour in exploration and
manipulation, and whose efforts resulted in the extraction of several
pieces of