FOREIGN bodies impacted in the external auditory canal or the middle ear may be of serious importance. Any object small enough to enter the external auditory canal is a potential foreign body in this location. Foreign bodies enter the external auditory canal by act of the person concerned, by carelessness and by accident. Small objects such as seeds, beads, rubber erasers from pencils, steel springs, balls of paper or stones may be placed in the ear by children at play. Adult persons in misguided therapeutic efforts scratch the external auditory canal with match sticks, toothpicks and hairpins. Cotton pledgets and gauze wicks placed in the external auditory canal by patient or physician may be forgotten and left in the canal, as may rubber ear plugs used by swimmers. One patient has been seen at the Mayo Clinic in whom a cast of plaster of paris became lodged against the tympanic