Discussion on the combination of diabetes with ear disease is 100 years old. In his historical survey Lederer (1926) mentioned Jordão as the first to have published, in 1857, a case history of diabetes accompanied by deafness.
Leaving aside considerations as to the eczematous and other skin conditions in the external auditory canal that are frequently found in diabetes, these hundred years have seen great variations in the manner in which the topic has been handled. The first symptoms to attract attention were deafness and dizziness. During the period of great and rapid advance in temporal bone surgery the interest switched to diseases of the middle ear and their complications, and the destructions caused by diabetes were recognized as of a particularly vicious nature (the "diabetic, necrotic otitis media" of the textbooks). Lately, sulfonamides and antibiotics have reduced the destructivity of the inflammatory process, and insulin has taken over control