The usual medical man has the following treatment:
Pour warm oil into the ear, then wash out with warm water (a very successful way to introduce hurtful microbes into the ear).
When this fails the Eustachian tubes are blown out with a “Politzer Bag.”
When this also fails some have a little instrument which buzzes like a bumble bee or sings like a mosquito which the patient has to listen to.
If even this treatment fails then the patient is bowed out as incurable.
Prevention is better than non-cure, so protect your ears when shooting.
A pistol is unlikely to burst the ear drum unless fired with a full charge in a small room or close to the ear, but pistol-fire seems to have a worse effect on the ears than the louder report from a rifle or shotgun, owing probably to the shortness of the pistol barrel bringing the discharge nearer to the ear.
The worst of all for the ears is when a man shoots past another’s head from close behind.
Gout or catarrh aggravates this evil and a man who never shoots may get “hard of hearing” and have constant singing in his ears from these diseases alone.
There is the later stage of attacks of vertigo when the semicircular canals are involved. Few aurists are successful in curing this.