PROTECTING THE EYES AND EARS

There is no direct danger to the eyes in pistol shooting, that is to say, with a good pistol there is no chance of a blow back of fire into the eyes, as there is in a cheap, rim fire rifle. The eyes are apt, however, to get bloodshot and sore from powder smoke blown back into them in a head wind, especially from the ejecting cartridge of an automatic pistol.

When doing much shooting daily out-of-doors it is well to wear a pair of big diameter spectacles fitting well behind the ears so that they do not shift. The spectacles may be of plain white glass, or else of a colour to suit the state of the sunlight.

Blue or grey used to be the usual colours; lately yellow-green seems to be the colour most recommended by oculists.

I found such yellow-green glasses a great relief to the eyes when bear shooting in the glare of sunlight on snow.

I am referring to men who have normal eyesight, not to those who have already to wear glasses to correct vision.It is important to protect the ears, perhaps even more important than the eyes. There is very little danger to the eyes but the ears are in very real danger when shooting.

Even the comparatively slight noise when shooting the gallery .44 ammunition or the short rifle .22, from constant pounding on the same note, affects the ears unless they are protected.

A concert pianist, one would think, by the noise he makes on the piano, would injure his ears even more than a pistol shot does, as the noise he makes is much louder.

Perhaps he does injure his ears and that is the reason he has to pound so hard and breaks the piano strings in his efforts to hear his own music.

Be that as it may, playing a variety of notes saves his ears as he does not have the constant hit on the one note and with the same intensity.

The ear is the least known of the various organs and is the one least successfully treated.

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.

There is only one ear protector which I have found of any use and I have tried all that have come out.

It is called the Elliott Ear Protector and is made by J. A. R. Elliott, Box 201, New York City, U. S. A.

Savory & Moore of 143 New Bond Street, London and Gieve, Mathews & Seagrove, Portsmouth, England have them in stock.

Most other ear protectors act on the wrong principle and are painful to wear and they bring on giddiness.To stuff the ears with cotton wool makes the pressure of air on the outside of the drum differ from the air coming through the Eustachian tube if this latter is blocked more or less by catarrh (as it is in nine out of ten persons, especially smokers or residents in damp climates). This inequality is increased and harm is done to the ear.

When a cold is supposed to be cured, it often is not but has gone from the early, through the acute, and on to the chronic stage. It then lies dormant, to wake up every time a fresh cold is caught, and then takes a deeper hold in the outer, middle, and inner ear. Often what is put down to gun deafness is really chronic catarrh and gout. People who have never fired a shot suffer from gun deafness and noises in the head.

As soon as a cold has ceased “to run” people think it is cured. They neglect to drive it entirely out of the system and it lies smouldering to take the earliest opportunity to flare up again, like a banked-up fire.

Some recommend wool mixture with modelling wax forced into the outer ear.

This not only has the defects of plain cotton wool but it is a compound impossible to fully take out again. The modelling composition sticks and remains in all the crevices of the ear and if forced repeatedly in dislocates the outer ear passage.

I use modelling wax for sculpture, and it is impossible to clean it out of the nails even with manicure instruments. It has to be dissolved with turpentine and peroxide which would ruin ears if used for them.

The Elliott Ear Protector acts on an entirely different principle and it reduces the noise of a heavy express rifle to a mere thump, like striking the fist on a wooden table. It takes all the sting out of the shot.

A man who was a gunner at the front during the war tells me that his ears are quite right owing to his having used the Elliott Ear Protectors, whereas a man standing next to him had an ear drum burst after a few shots.

The principle of this protector is to let the sound strike the side of the tube of the outer ear, instead of directly on the ear drum. The protector closes the ear tube so that only a very minute, hair-like passage remains, through which a whisper can come, but any big volume of sound is checked, like a crowd trying to push through a narrow door and allowed only to dribble in one at a time.

Even the small amount of sound which does get through is impinged on to the sides of the outer ear passage. None reaches the drum of the ear direct, but indirectly by the action of a rubber diaphragm.

The result is arrived at as follows:

A short celluloid rod has a hair thin hole running down it, but not quite reaching the far end. It enters a hole of the same size running across the tube.There is a soft India rubber disc at each end of the rod, the transverse hole being between the two discs.

In use this rod is inserted into the ear till the uppermost disc just closes the passage into the external ear, and the lower disc cuts off access to the ear drum.

Any sound reaching the ear can therefore only pass down this hair thin passage in the rod and into the space between these two rubber diaphragms.

The sound cannot reach the ear drum. It passes through the transverse hole into the space between the two discs.

No sound reaches the ear directly. It only hears the vibration of the inner rubber diaphragm and the diaphragm receives only a very minute part of the original sound which reaches the ear.

The minute hole in the rod allows of the entry and escape of the outer air. Thus each side of the ear drum receives an equal pressure of the external atmosphere.

When very heavy gunfire has to be withstood, care must be taken that the outer disc fits airtight into the tube of the ear. A little vaseline or other antiseptic ointment round the edge of this disc makes an airtight joint, or a third rubber disc is added, but the two discs are ample for pistol shooting.

The ear protector is easily kept clean and antiseptic by washing occasionally in a weak antiseptic solution.There is no inconvenience in wearing these ear protectors and they are not very noticeable.

With some other forms of protectors, made of hard vulcanite which are forced in to make an airtight closure, pain and soreness arise if they are worn for any length of time and this unyielding vulcanite may displace the anvil and bones of the middle ear, or a sore may be caused and set up grave inflammation. Any ear plug which requires forcing or stretching the ear passage is dangerous or painful to wear.