Tes iatrikes kartos, or, A treatise de morborum capitis essentiis & pronosticis adorned with above three hundred choice and rare observations ... / by Robert Bayfield ...

CAP. XCII. De Cophosi, seu surditate, & gravi auditu.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, seu Surditas, Deafness, is when the hearing is totally gone, so that the Pati∣ent either heareth no noise, or if he do, he can∣not distinguish it.

Surditas à nativitate non est curabilis. Quae verò inveterata & diuturna, difficillime curatur. A deafness from choler or blood, which hapneth onely in sharp continuing Fevers, cum earum fe∣brium curatione solvi consuevit. Surditas per in∣tervalla crescens & decrescens curabilis est. For it signifieth that it comes from a moveable humor, which sometimes is more, sometimes less in quantity: A deafness coming from a distemper of the brain is more easily cured, than that which comes from a proper disease of the ear.

A certain woman of Delf, as Forestus reports, after a long disease fell deaf, which after sufficient

purging abstained from Physick; at length she was perswaded by an old woman to put a grain or two of Musk into her ears with a little Cot∣ton, and so doing she was wonderfully cured.

Some Authors commend the water of an Ash, which is made by putting one end of a green Ash into the fire, and taking the water out of the o∣ther end; this is best when deafness comes of a hot cause: Mathiolus mixeth this water with juyces, and commends it highly in these words: We know that the water which comes out of Ash, when it is burnt, mixed with the juyce of Sow-bread, Squils, and Rue, in equal parts warm∣ed together, to be excellent against deafness, if it be dropped into the sound ear when the Patient goeth to bed, and lieth upon that ear which is deaf; but when both ears are deaf, then into that which is least affected.

Many I have cured of deafness, only by drop∣ping into the ear the distilled water of Carduus Benedictus, the leaves thereof being twice infu∣sed in the glass vessel.

Ants Eggs mixed with the juyce of an Onion, and dropped into the Ear, do cure the oldest deaf∣ness, as Zechius saith.

The Gall of a Hare is much commended, if it be used fresh, with an equal portion of the pu∣rest Honey, and warmed in the shell of an Onion.

Si affectus contumacissimus propositis remediis non cedat, curari potest salivatione, usu mercurii

dulcis curiosè administrati procuratâ quia Surdi∣tas ex lue venerea contracta ita curari solet. Vi∣de supra, in capite de cancro corneae, versus fi∣nem.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, seu gravis auditus, is, when one can∣not hear without much difficulty, nor understand what others say, except they speak very loud.

Thick hearing, if it be not speedily cured, end∣eth in a perfect deafness.

Plura de Surditate, & gravi auditu, vide in meo Enchiriaio Medico, lib. 3. cap. 15. Et etiam in meâ Scholâ Physicâ, Med. 107.