EARS & PINS

I recently came across a box containing the above objects,  a souvenir of a Parisian summer many years ago.  They seemed oddly prescient considering the "noise" I now unleash on the ears of a very small world. I remember being intrigued by odd items in a medical shop near the Sorbonne,  and had to go in and explore the strange paraphernalia hinted at by the window display.  It seems that the numbered acupuncture points (way more plentiful on the left ear) could help relieve certain ailments throughout the patient's body (large intestine,  genitals, etc.).  The box also included two marbles,  a small red one and a larger blue one,  whose uses are entirely a mystery to me.  The enclosed booklet (mostly in Chinese) states the "Auriculotherapy (using the ears' acupuncture points to affect other junctures of the body) is part of acupuncture and a valuable heredity of Traditional Chinese Medicine".  To me,  this set of model ears is less about clinical use and more about a compelling visual phenomenon.