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A number of children have been referred with hearing defects,
including those of a suitable age for audiometric testing who have
'failed' to pass the test, and younger children whose hearing can be
tested only by clinical methods. Also a small number with otitis
media, acute or sub-acute, with or without discharge, and others with
external otitis. Some were seen who had one or more attacks of
mild tonsillitis or hypertrophied cervical glands, as well as some
with speech defects queried as to any relation with abnormal nasal
function or defective hearing.
Longstanding chronic ear discharge has shown a marked decline
in recent years. After years of treatment elsewhere which had
apparently failed, these cases respond to the special method of zinc
ionisation treatment, adopted at this clinic for many years.
Methods of treatment so successfully employed include aural
suction for acute and sub-acute otorrhoea with Chloromycetin mainly;
zinc ionisation for chronic otorrhea, always with concurrent correction
of any nasal factors causing or complicating the condition.
For sinusitis, except acute, in children, Proetz 'displacement
method' using, after initial weak ephedrine solution, albucid, or argyrol
or lipiodol (French) as indicated. The results, in selected cases,
after lipiodol therapeutically, have been very good. In certain cases
of rhinitis, a course of Dowling's nasal argyrol packs. Gautier's
nasal diastolisation is perhaps the most frequently employed and is an
excellent method of treatment in suitable cases, with lasting results
in clearing the nasal passages and re-establishing a free nasal airway
and normal respiration as well as relieving the objectionable mouth
breathing enforced by nasal obstruction. Also in those frequent
instances of defective hearing in young children, chiefly due to
unnoticed, untreated or incorrectly treated otitis, or nasal complications;
defective hearing is a very common sequel in nasal obstruction.
Diastolisation in the majority of cases through its effect in clearing
the nasal repiratory airway, etc. has produced the most remarkable
results in the restoration of the affected hearing. Even in deafness
of long standing, due no doubt to the absence of suitable treatment,
where full normal restoration is not now possible, diastolisation can,
properly used, produce a very marked improvement. Its good
results have been long established by such authorities as A. G. Wells
and A. R. Friel in this country, and numerous leading specialists in
France who first devised the method and technique and have practised
it extensively.
We have found nasal zinc ionisation very effective in rapidly
and completely suppressing the distressing symptoms in the few cases
of allergic rhinitis treated. The method was first devised by Leduc
in France, and later used frequently and successfully here by Friel
and others.
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