After a decade of general use of some of the most effective antibiotic and sulfonamide drugs, one finds that infectious disease of the middle-ear spaces and the mastoid portion of the temporal bone still accounts for the majority of all cases of deafness encountered in children and young adults. Admittedly, the number and severity of dangerous complications of middle-ear infections are much less than in the preantibiotic era; nor is the amount of chronicity and deafness as great. Yet, the considerable number of cases in which pathological changes of a chronic nature affect the sound-conducting apparatus makes it apparent that, apart from the sulfonamides and antibiotics, there exists need for improvement in the diagnosis and treatment of these conditions.
Along with the advances in medical treatment of all infectious diseases, including those affecting the ear, has come the refienment of surgical techniques developed primarily to perfect the fenestration operation for