is earwig, and is ear!! Why, you may ask, is this association so widespread? It has been suggested that the pleated hind-wing when stretched out resembles a human ear! Your authors cannot somehow endorse this theory, which does not have the ring of truth to it. Can you imagine a primitive Turk (or Welshman) pulling the wings off an earwig? One of your authors wondered whether the tool used to pierce ears in the past looked like the sexual end of a male earwig. Incidentally, Labia minora is the name in the entomology book for the lesser earwig. “found in nettle beds” -your authors laboured under a completely different impression. A dictionary of European folklore avers that the insects “crawl into your ears and eat your brains“.⁸³ The alleged cure is to lie down on newly turned-up soil, and the earwig will run out again. This could be a good way for medical practitioners to get their gardens dug.

Despite the fact that the humble earwig has this etymological association with the auditory canal neither of your authors has ever seen an earwig going into anything other than a Dahlia. They can end up elsewhere though – witness the unfortunate man who, after taking a sharp, deep, draught on his bronchodilator experienced a disagreeable and wriggly sensation in the centre of the chest. Following rapid and explosive coughing he managed to expel two earwigs.⁸⁴ Your authors must confess to a tremendous paucity of clinical experience when considering the earwig in the ear. Fortunately, our American cousins can relate two cases. The first concerns a postgraduate student in Flagstaff, Arizona who suffered a punctured and lacerated tympanic membrane.⁸⁵ The second concerns a patient who was much luckier – it was evidently a female which “cautiously emerged, to the relief of insect, child and father”.⁸⁶ It cannot be said that such forays by the earwig are common. Not so with the cockroach (from the Spanish Cucaracha) which, according to Encyclopedia Americana⁸⁷ has a predilection for so doing. Between 1985 and 1989 the Afew England Journal of Medicine even contained, in an aptly named article, a “controlled trial” on Removing Cockroaches from the Auditory Canal⁸⁸ and a further piece comparing the use of lidocaine^v and mineral oil⁸⁹. What amazes your authors, who can remember tediously dissecting Blatta orientalis for their A-levels, is how the huge insects managed to get into ears in the first place, they are so big. Some attain a wing span of 5 inches. Another bug which definitely gets into ears and is evidently endemic in the ear canals of Navaho Indians, who sleep on untreated sheepskins, is the spinose Argasid sheep tick (Otobius megnini) which can cause severe perichondritis.⁹⁰ Of course the sheep themselves also sleep on untreated skins, but do not seem to be troubled by this problem. Why this should be so remains a mystery to your authors, who in the normal course of events are only too ready to embark on journeys far afield to sort out mysteries of an otolaryngological bent. In this case, however, neither felt any inkling to, in the words of our erstwhile colleague Andrew Salmon, live with shepherds andfind ourselves. Probably because we do not consider ourselves as lost as him.

The casual reader (or American, Australian or whatever) who has not fully followed the authors’ efforts to shed light and bring truth to some of the terms and descriptions usee! in otolaryngology may well be wondering whether such accuracy, bordering (as the uninitiated might consider) on the verge of pedantry, is really necessary. Of course it is! It is only through maintaining an ever-present vigil that Truth may shine through and the dark forces of Error and Sloppiness be banished. We applaud the courageous stand made by the editor of the Lancet who published the letter from the manufacturers of Lysol

Stay updated, free articles. Join our Telegram channel

Join