Toronto ear-nose-and-throat specialist Dr. Rick Fox first heard about ear candling when a patient arrived in his office in incredible pain. The candle had burnt right through his ear, leaving a chunk of wax lodged in it. The patient "had suffered a significant burn throughout his canal and drum," says Fox. "He had perforated his tympanic membrane so we had to do a surgical repair and graft his drum." Fox spent that Christmas day reconstructing the man's ear for a treatment he says doesn't work at all: "Many of the proponents, they cut open the candle and they show you this incredible amount of wax. What they don't show you is that if you don't put it into the ear, and you still light it on fire and you open it up, it looks the exact same. "All the junk that's in the candle is simply the beeswax and the residue," says Fox. "It's not human ear wax." CBC News (22nd February 2000)