Steve Trudgen, age 9, of Lansing, Michigan, for his question:
Why do we have wax in our ears?
Too much ear wax may muffle sounds and make you a bit deaf. It also may give you an earache. But ordinary folk never fool with this problem. We go see the doctor ¬right away. He takes out the waxy plug tenderly, without damaging the delicate working parts of the ear. Most people never get too much ear wax. But everybody's ear makes a little of the waxy stuff. We leave it alone because it is there for a good reason.
The ears are very, very delicate and the good old body does its very best to take care of them. The tiny little working parts are deep inside the head, safely buried in the sturdy bones of the skull. These working parts are the inner ears. They are small miracles that trap sounds from outside and flash this news to the brain. But they need help to trap the sounds from outside.
Two other parts of the ear help them to catch the sounds. The outer ears are what you see on the sides of a person's head. They are shaped like shells and are shaped to trap sounds and swish them around. Each outer ear sends sounds down a canal that tunnels an inch and a half into the bony skull. This canal makes the ear wax.
Scientists say that you should never clean out the ear canal yourself unless you can do it with your elbow. Ha! So you can't do it at all. This is because clumsy poking can upset its important duties. The end of the tunnel is sealed with a papery skin called the eardrum. The sounds coming down the canal make the eardrum shiver and vibrate. The vibrations go through the eardrum to the middle ear and the inner ear on the other side, deeper inside the skull. These are the delicate little parts that do the hearing work. The inner ear sends the vibrating signals to the brain. Before you know it, the brain tells you what you are hearing.
All this depends on the eardrum. If this thin papery seal is torn or punctured, it cannot vibrate properly. Then a person is deaf. The eardrum can be damaged by a bang on the side of the head, by a very loud noise or by poking around inside the canal. The canal leads in the sounds and also does its best to protect the eardrum.
The canal is lined from end to end with delicate skin. This skin has special sweat glands that ooze gummy wax. When dusty fragments blow into the canal, most of them get trapped in the goo. If a tiny bug enters your ear, his feet get stuck long beforehe reaches the precious eardrum at the end of the tunnel.
The ear canal keeps itself covered with a thin layer of this useful wax. Sometimes it gets clogged with dust. Then new wax is made and a dirty old clump oozes outside. Naturally this gets washed away when we clean out shell shaped outer ears with soap and water. The washing removed some dirt that might sneak down the tunnel.