CAUSES OF DEAFNESS IN YOUNG CHILDREN

Abstract

THIS ARTICLE is concerned primarily with permanent deafness in children under 5 years of age. We have collected for study the charts of 270 children under the age of 10 years, but the deafness in all of them began before the age of 5 years, except in two cases of congenital syphilis. About half of the cases were from Vanderbilt Clinic and half from private files of the past two years. They are consecutive cases in the Speech and Hearing Section of the Department of Otolaryngology in the sense that patients were selected only when complete data regarding audiograms and history were available. There were 15 cases of total or nearly total deafness (i. e., more than 95 db. loss) in one ear with normal hearing in the other. Eight of these followed mumps; three followed measles; two followed fractures of the skull, and in two there was no assignable