When a land mine exploded in the midst of Indian troops in the Middle East, it left 60 casualties with broken eardrums in one or both ears. Of the wounded, the ones who fared best were those whose unwashed ears were plugged with accumulated wax.
Captain G. W. Palmer, British Army doctor who reported the cases in the British Medical Journal, washed out the earwax in two cases and infection resulted. He let nine alone for three weeks. Then he washed their ears too, found three broken but uninfected eardrums, six unharmed eardrums. He...
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