The inflammation of an average ear (sharp average otitis) is one of the most frequent diseases at children's age. According to the statistics, practically each child in this or that form has been ill with an otitis. Such prevalence is connected with variety of anatomic and physiological features of a children's organism. In most cases the otitis arises as complication of sharp respiratory disease and proceeds in two forms: catarrhal and purulent. The most frequent reason of development of an average otitis – a usual cold. Weak immunity of the child, propensity to allergic reactions, presence of adenoids in a nasopharynx, inability to blow one's nose, etc. lead to that the infected slime from a cavity of a nose and a nasopharynx through an acoustical pipe gets into an average ear.
Yakov Bogatin thinks that the popular belief in that an infection gets into an ear outside, through acoustical pass is absolutely wrong. Also such safety measures as constant carrying of a cap or, for example, plugging ears with cotton wool are senseless. «To catch an otitis» also is impossible. Preventive maintenance of otitises is the prevention and competent treatment of usual catarrhal diseases especially accompanied by a strong cold.
Disease begins, as a rule, sharply, often at night after a child has been put to bed. The basic symptom is the pain in an ear which can be very strong. The temperature usually simultaneously raises, the general state of health worsens. The child lasts a hand to a sick ear, refuses a dummy. The dream, appetite are broken, quite often diarrhea appears.
The further development of disease leads to that in a cavity of an average ear pus which breaks through an eardrum is formed and starts to flow from acoustical pass. Catarrhal otitis form is replaced by the purulent. Sometimes, especially at children of chest age, it occurs very quickly. With occurrence of suppuration the pain in an ear, as a rule, decreases or stops absolutely, the temperature decreases, the state of health of the child improves.
Yakov Bogatin states that unfortunately, such favorable enough succession of events happen not always. Sometimes pus does not break through an eardrum, and the meningitis starts to extend in the next departments of a temporal bone that leads to such terrible complications as, for example, the meningitis.
