The treatment of all diseases of the ears is greatly simplified by these methods and therapy. In most cases highly successful results are obtained with almost mathematical exactness and dispatch and with surprising rapidity by just the use of the nasal antisepticizing treatments. As a general rule, all surgical operations on all parts of the ears can be avoided by the early use of the nasal antisepticizing treatments in most all people who are suffering from acute inflammation of the various parts of the ears. The use of the antisepticizing treatments as a preventive in all ear diseases is still better. When used as a preventive of acute ear inflammation in many thousands of seriously ill people, the writer has not had a single case of abscess of the ears or mastoid inflammation follow as a complication. In those rare, extremely acute cases of inflammation of the ears, where there is imminent danger of mastoid inflammation, the opening and spraying of the maxillary sinuses with the bichloride of mercury solution may be necessary. This was necessary only once in a patient who was being poisoned unknown to the doctors.
The acute inflammation of the ears such as abscesses of the middle ears or inflammation of the mastoid bone are nicely and quickly relieved and cured by these means. These methods make it possible to avoid lancing the ear drums. Avoiding such surgery is especially desirable in infants and children. Severe ear pains which are so common in acute inflammation of the middle ears are quickly relieved and the patient can sleep peacefully after one or two antisepticizing treatments. In those patients whose drums have broken spontaneously and the ears are discharging pus, under the continued use of the antisepticizing treatments, the drums will heal completely, the discharge of pus will quickly disappear and the hearing will be entirely restored in surprisingly short time.
In June 1926 the writer published a paper in the Laryngoscope on the avoidability or unnecessity of lancing the ear drums of people suffering with abscesses of the ears. That, thanks to the antisepticizing treatments, the ear drums need not be cut open, has been proven innumerable times. A few antisepticizing treatments, and surgery on the ears in most if not all cases of acute, painful inflammations of the ears is entirely avoided. Daily more physicians are following and using this simple method in preference to the more dangerous one of surgery of the mastoid bone, or lancing the ear drums.
Like every new discovery, it will take time until the profession as a whole will follow this simple method in preference to the older and more dangerous methods of surgery on the ear drums and mastoid bone.
Taking care of a child or adult suffering with acute, painful middle ear inflammation is a physician’s duty and it should not be undertaken by a parent or anyone else. A physician acquainted with the methods of this system should be called in at the very onset of the trouble and by the use of these nasal treatments the patient will obtain immediate relief. In most cases the ear pains will be greatly lessened or the ear pains will even completely disappear before the doctor has fully completed the patient’s first treatment.
The average acutely inflamed middle ear (abscess of the middle ear) will be relieved quickly of all pains and tenderness by the simple use of the antisepticizing treatments. Occasionally an unusually severe case will be met with which may require attention to the maxillary sinuses as described in Section II for Physicians. These cases are rare. It will be found that these difficult and stubborn cases have maxillary sinuses which are full of pus; this pus must be evacuated through a fairly large opening and the sinuses sprayed out with the same strength of bichloride of mercury solution as that used in the nose.
It is only the exceptional hyperacute, badly inflamed, neglected and very painful ear case that will not immediately respond to the simple nose and throat antisepticizing spray. These patients either have maxillary sinuses full of pus, or are patients who apply for treatment when the inflammation has extended to the extreme, or are subjects suffering with terminal conditions of other serious diseases ; or have contributing causes affecting their bodies which decidedly lower their resistance and keep their resistance down.
As a rule, the average patient with an acute, painful inflammation of the middle ear will commence and should commence to get well after the first antisepticizing spray and with the aid of a few more antisepticizing sprays, recover completely with full restoration of hearing and have avoided a surgical operation on the ear drums and on the mastoid bone. So the rule is if the patient’s ear pains and all the other ear complaints do not quickly disappear with the use of the antisepticizing sprays alone, then we should look further for the reason and explanation. These will be found in maxillary sinuses full of pus, or in other serious conditions which reduce the patient’s resistance dangerously such as the terminal stages of fatal diseases or the actual poisoning of the patient’s food. These were the only exceptions the writer has met with so far which made it impossible for the antisepticizing treatments alone to cure the patient of all serious, painful ear complaints and made it necessary to operate on the patient.
Deafness, whether of the ordinary, everyday variety or the rarer form known as otosclerosis, can be corrected, greatly improved and in many cases even cured by these methods and means. Again, we may permit ourselves a very optimistic attitude as regards this otherwise stubborn disease. Patients will be made happy by the very first antisepticizing treatment as a result of immediate improvement in hearing following the treatment.
The common, everyday variety of deafness is due to chronic catarrhal disease invading the middle ear structures and eustachian tubes. This catarrhal inflammation originates from the interior of the nose, where it started (in the person’s common foundation of disease) and from here spreads into the ears through the eustachian tubes. Nearly all middle aged, aging and old people suffer more or less from this form of deafness.
This common form of deafness (chronic catarrhal deafness) is very nicely and quickly helped by the methods and therapy of this system. In fact, the results are so rapid and encouraging that they are almost spectacular. As a rule one antisepticizing treatment administered to a person who is so deaf that the watch tick cannot be heard, will prove so beneficial that the person will say immediately after the antisepticizing treatment has been given, that hearing has improved so that the watch tick is heard. Or patient may only be able to hear the watch tick a short distance from each ear, or with the watch lying flat on the ears or one half inch away from each ear. Immediately after each antisepticizing treatment the patient’s hearing is so improved that he can hear the watch tick from one-half inch to one inch off the ears where it was only heard when lying flat on the ears. Where the watch tick was heard about one half inch from the ears, after the first antisepticizing treatment it will be heard from two to five inches from the ears. The older method of blowing out the ears, never restored the hearing to as great an extent as the antisepticizing treatments, and there is usually a rapid return of the deafness soon after the blowing process. By means of the antisepticizing treatments and the other methods of common foundationing, the restoration of the hearing is permanent.
Ringing of the Ears, Head Noises
Ringing of the ears, head noises (tinnitus), are usually symptoms of deafness or approaching deafness. These head noises are quite amenable to relief and in most cases can even be completely cured by this therapy. The more recent cases, especially the early ones, are quite easily relieved; this is also true of moderately chronic cases. The older, very chronic cases can be helped and the head noises (tinnitus) made bearable, but not always completely relieved of all noises.
The earlier this work is started after the onset of the head noises, the easier and more likely will the patient obtain relief by these methods.
The Curability of Ear Polyps
The generally accepted opinion of ear (aural) polyps is that without a complete radical mastoid operation the polyps are not permanently curable. Complete, careful common foundationing will accomplish a cure without the dangerous and disfiguring radical mastoid operation.
The radical mastoid operation is life-endangering in patients with ears badly infested with polyps. The writer has found from his experience that common foundationing which avoids and makes unnecessary the mastoid operation is after all the safer of the two.
In fact, ears infested with polyps seem to get well quite easily and quickly under common foundationing. Such badly diseased ears seem to heal up and dry up quicker than ears which are suffering from chronic discharge of pus and have no polyps. The hearing is restored to a decided degree by this work. It is not necessary to remove the polyps from the ears by surgical means (operation). Under the continued use of the antisepticizing treatments, the ear polyps will soon shrivel up and fall off. Paralysis of one-half of the face which often follows the radical mastoid operation is avoided by the use of common foundationing.