Chronic suppuration of the temporal bone may go on indefinitely without any general systemic symptoms. The patient's only outstanding complaints may be otorrhea and impaired hearing. The otorrhea may be constant or intermittent, profuse or scanty, odorless or offensive. The impairment of hearing may be of the conductive or of the perceptive type or a combination of both.
There are two types of otitic suppuration: (a) the nondangerous and (b) the dangerous.
Nondangerous suppuration involves invariably the mucous membrane of the eustachian tube and the middle ear and occasionally the epitympanic region.
The dangerous variety not only involves the mucous membranes but attacks bony structures. In the progress of the disease, suppuration and erosions of such important vital bony structures as the cerebral and cerebellar dural plates, the lateral sinus plate, the facial canal and the bony labyrinth may occur.
Bearing in mind the dangers of chronic suppuration, I