have been considered for the
most part as of little hope.[22] With the auditory organs so securely
hidden away in the head, entrenched within the protecting temporal bone,
and with their structure so delicate and complicated, the problem may
well have been regarded a baffling one even for the best labor of
medicine and surgery. Hence it is that after deafness has once effected
lodgment in the system, a cure has not usually been regarded as within
reach, though for certain individual cases there may be medical
examination and treatment, with attempts made at relief. For deafness in
general, it has been felt that there has been little that could be done
in the way of prevention or cure beyond the preservation of the general
health and the warding off of diseases that might cause loss of hearing.

As a matter of fact, however, altogether too little attention has been
given hitherto to the possibilities of the prevention of deafness.
Without question there is much at the outset that can be accomplished
towards the prevention of those diseases that cause deafness. A large
part, perhaps fully a third, as we have seen, are due to infectious
diseases, and it is probably here that measures are likely to be most
efficacious. A considerable portion likewise are the result of diseases
affecting the passages of the nose and throat, and help should be
possible for many of these if taken in hand soon enough. In certain
diseases also, as scarlet fever, measles, typhoid fever, diphtheria, and
others, there are not a few cases which, so far as deafness as a
development is concerned, would prove amenable to skillful and
persistent treatment. At the same time due attention to primary ear
troubles would in a number of instances keep off permanent deafness.
Indeed, it is possible that some thirty or forty per cent of
adventitious deafness is preventable by present known means.[23]

Aside from direct medical treatment for those diseases that cause
deafness, there are other measures available in a program for the
prevention of deafness. One of the foremost essentials is the report to
the health authorities of all serious diseases that are liable to result
in deafness. In this way proper medical care may be secured, and due
precautions may be taken to isolate infectious cases. Even with
meningitis, which is so hard usually to deal with and which is so
severe in its ravages, there is often some concomitant trouble, and if
made notifiable in al