What Could "Rising In The Ear" Be? Granny's Medical Term

Factual Questions
1

I was watching the Beverly Hillbillies and as you know Granny is an MD -> Mountain Doctor. Anyway she was talking to an MD -> Medical Doctor and was asking him how to cure various things.

Now she was listing things like Quinsy and Dropsy which are old time names for actual illnesses. I was able to Google the list and find an actual conditon.

The only condition or disease I couldn’t find an answer for was something Granny called: “Rising in the Ear” or at least that is what it sounded like to me.

Was wondering if anyone would have any idea what that might be?

I figured since the other things Granny mentioned were actual old time names that this would also be the case. Of course it’s just a sitcom so it could be made up.

2

Risings are, according to the old Foxfire books, boils. I’m not sure why she’d specifically mention the ear, though.

3

I found an entry in Google Books for a book called “Modern Medicine”. It dates from 1904 so it may not exactly be modern by our standards. :stuck_out_tongue:

It seems to refer to “rising in the ear” as a middle ear infection.

The treatment for it (in 1904) was apparently to make an incision in the eardrum so that the pus would drain out.

4

I always thought she meant something like a pimple (or boil).

5

It’s called a myringotomy. I had it done several times as a child (in the 1980s), I had a lot of middle ear infections. I remember it as being quite painful, but then the ear would already be very sore at that point. I also had infections that weren’t lanced, and a few time my eardrums would burst from the pressure. For some reason this only ever happened when I was asleep, and it wasn’t exactly my favourite way of waking up.

I was bemused when my doctor told me recently that eardrums don’t heal - they most certainly do, and pretty quickly, too.

6

Cool thanks.

7

Of course, Granny’s treatment usually involved drinking some hooch, even if it was she who did the drinking! :smiley: