[Read before the Section on Ophthalmology, Otology and Laryngology of the American Medical Association, June, 1883.]
Diseases of the ear and their connection with general medicine is a subject of grave importance, and the general practitioner who neglects or omits their study will often fall into serious errors of diagnosis, and of necessity be unsuccessful in treatment.
Acute and chronic disease of the middle ear will give rise to temporary or permanent facial paralysis, alteration in taste or smell, sight, and even gait. False epiliptiform convulsions, hemiplegia and insanity are also due to reflex phenomena, from irritation and compression of the sensory and motor nerves of the ear, or the result of necrosis of portions of the temporal bone. It is now a well recognized fact that pyæmic abscesses in the brain and some forms of rheumatic fever have their starting point in the middle ear.
Paralysis of the parts