I can't find any examples, because every Google query I have about cleaning behind the ears just pops up with a million WebMD articles about ear cleaning.
I was wondering if there was a historical reason why cleaning behind the ears is such a big deal?
Skin folds are problematic body parts: some rub against each other and some trap moisture, liquids, and foreign materials. In both cases this may result in inflammation and infection. The postauricular area is one of those: it is prone to a wide range of dermatoses ranging from mild rashes to more serious stuff like intertrigo, fungal infections etc. Seborrheic dermatitis, for instance, is a common condition in infants that causes crusty, scaly patches on the scalp and other parts of the head, including behind the ears. In babies, excessive drooling (notably during teething) can result in saliva stagnating and causing maceration in skin folds (ears, neck).
In 1609, Jacques Guillemeau, royal surgeon of Henri III, Henri IV, and Louis XIII, wrote De la nourriture et gouvernement des enfants (translated in English as The nursing of children. Wherein is set downe the ordering and Government of them from their Birth), one of the first books of pediatrics written in the West that did not rely on Greek, Roman, and Arabian treaties. In the chapter titled "How to govern the child as soon as he is weaned and stops suckling", Guillemeau wrote:
Little children have often wet ears, not only inside, but also around them, and this produces filth (crasse), which causes malignant ulcers due to heating, and one should take care of this ; first, with a well polished ear pick, one will try to remove from the deep hole of the ear all the moisture and the yellow and bilious excrement ; moisture will be dried, and the circumference of the ear will be wiped clean, and between the ears and the head, for fear that they heat up, one will place little clothes, so to absorb the moisture that usually seeps from the ears and from the head.
While Guillemeau does not mention it, the "wet ears" could be found in Hippocrates' Aphorisms, III, 24:
In the different ages the following complaints occur: to little and new-born children, aphthae, vomiting, coughs, sleeplessness, frights inflammation of the navel, watery discharges from the ears.
However, an earlier pediatrics treaty by Simon de Vallambert (Cinq livres de la manière nourrir et de gouverner les enfans dès leur naissance, 1565) did talk about children's ears, but only to mention earwax, considered as some sort of "choleric" brain moisture that had came out of the wrong hole (instead of the nose and mouth). And kids had worms in their ears apparently.
By the 18th century, French medical treaties were normalizing ear cleaning in children.
In 1770, physician Joseph Raulin in his De la conservation des enfans compared the methods used in Europe to clean the skin of children, which (according to him) was done with idiosyncratically national combinations of water, alcohol (beer, wine), oil or melted butter, urine (taken directly from the nappies), and dry frictions.
In Leiden, they rub [children] with a piece of fine flannel, soaked in hot buttered beer. There are midwives who use hot buttered wine; they then sprinkle the whole body with spirit of wine which they warm in their mouths: some cut the spirit of wine with warm water. The head and face are washed daily, especially behind the ears; pure wine spirit is used for the head and face, or mixed with a little water; pure fresh water for the ears and lower parts; the whole body is washed from time to time with buttered beer, especially where there is a stain, and at the fontanelle; care is taken to dry the parts that have been wet by lightly rubbing them with hot cloths.
In 1796, Republican physician Nicolas Saucerotte wrote:
From the day after birth, the child must be washed daily in all parts of his body, with a sponge soaked in cold water, or at the very most slightly soaked in cold weather: an infinitely beneficial practice, which hardens against the cold and strengthens. It is important not to forget the back of the ears, nor any of the places where the skin folds: because they are the ordinary place of chapping and excoriations or abrasions to which children are subject, which most often come from dirtiness; Moreover, whatever the cause, they are soon cured with the help of cleanliness, and by sprinkling them with burnt flour, or by covering them with a small compress soaked in water of goulard, or finally with a cloth of pink ointment or populeum recens, of ceratum of saturne, or simply of burnt butter.
By the 19th century, cleaning behind the ears was common enough for Joseph Capuron, an obstetrician, to dedicate several paragraphs of his Traité des maladies des enfans (1813) to the pros and cons of this practice.
The back of the ears is usually wet in children; it is even one of the symptoms which almost always accompany the work of teething; sometimes the skin ulcerates there, and provides a more or less abundant ooze or suppuration. This kind of rash is far from being harmful to health; on the contrary, there are children to whom it is very advantageous, especially when their heads are too large in relation to the size of their bodies.
He goes on saying that one should let the "hand of nature" work, and that drying the ears may result in colics, convulsions, or ophtalmias. His recommends the following:
Wash the back of the ears with a little lukewarm water or with a little infusion of marshmallow; apply to the ulcers, not red cabbage leaves, as is practised in some places, but chard leaves smeared with butter, and keep them there by means of a white cloth compress, which is carefully renewed; this is what the whole dressing consists of. If this little device sticks to the ears, it is moistened to make it easier to remove.
In 1846, physician Armand Trousseau (who has now a children hospital named after him), dedicated a series of articles to the different types of gourmes (breakouts) in children:
The superficial excoriations that are seen behind the ears of small children, on the folds of the thighs and wherever the skin forms bulges, are almost always the result of carelessness on the part of the parents. If these accidents occur in fat and healthy children, and if after their appearance the health remains good, they must be cured at all costs and as quickly as possible. Very often, however, cleanliness is sufficient for healing; frequently repeated hot lotions, soapy baths, and the application of lycopod powder all contribute to the rapid drying of the irritated surfaces.
These remarks also appeared in English in the Medico-Chirurgical Review.
Finally, popular writer Sophie Rostopchine, Countess of Ségur, started her literary career by writing her own treaty of pediatrics in 1855:
ABRASIONS IN THE JOINTS, IN THE FOLDS AND BEHIND THE EARS. Very young children are prone to scratches in the folds of the neck, thighs, ankles, feet and armpits. To prevent them, the child must be washed every day, especially in all these folds, wipe well to the bottom without rubbing, and powder twice a day at least with rice or barley powder; it is sold in all perfumers and chemists. As for the folds of the thighs, etc., wash and powder all the As for the folds of the thighs, etc., wash and powder every time the child has soiled his or her nappy, and at least three times a day. Wash and powder twice a day behind the ears.
So: cleaning behind the ears had a long history in Western Europe, at least in France, but I'm quite sure that similar works could be found in other countries. The postauricular area tends to get moist and yucky in children and is prone to more or less serious rashes. If it wasn't already a common practice (as mentioned by Raulin), cleaning the back of the ears was recommended by physicians and popular writers, who, by the 19th century, told parents that they were careless if they failed to do so.
Sources
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