GRADENIGO'S syndrome affords the otologist one of the few dramatic episodes in otologic practice and often causes him no little anxiety because of what it may portend. The Italian author Gradenigo was the first to establish as a clinical entity the syndrome which bears his name. Isolated paralysis of the external rectus muscle complicating acute suppuration in the temporal bone had been reported in the literature a number of times prior to his presentation of this syndrome in 1904. To acute suppurative otitis media and paresis or paralysis of the abducens nerve of the same side he added the distinctive feature of temporoparietal pain of an unusually severe and persistent type and concluded that this formidable trinity constitutes a definite symptom complex.
INCIDENCE
This syndrome is relatively rare, but it occurs frequently enough to warrant inclusion of the subject in textbooks of otology and ophthalmology. It is seldom encountered by