The principle of displacement described by Proetz has undoubtedly added immensely to the successful diagnosis and treatment of ailments in the posterior sinuses, particularly the sphenoid sinuses.
A minor variation of this original method, namely irrigation with gentle suction, affords an additional method of diagnosis and treatment of the entire ethmoid group of cells, except those comprising the most anterior portion of the ethmoid capsule.
Proetz1 recently, in evaluating his method, described what he has named "washing through." This is "the application of continuous suction at one nostril while a treatment solution is being poured into the other." N. Asherson2 reported a series of cases of children successfully treated in this manner.
Over a period of three years we have used this method in the treatment of subacute residual ethmoiditis following "colds," of chronic hyperplastic conditions of the posterior ethmosphenoid sinuses associated with postnasal drip and headache and of retrobullbar