The subject of intracranial lesions arising from suppurative otitis has occupied the foreground in otologic discussions for many years. The brilliant achievements of Macewen in this difficult surgery were already well known in the 80's and his classical work "Pyogenic Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord," published in 1893, stands, with few parallels in surgical literature, as a monument to his genius.
The impetus exerted by this publication in extending the otologist's field has been tremendous, and has resulted in the cure of hundreds of cases which previously had been considered hopeless.
Added knowledge of the function of certain areas in the brain, improved methods of study of the blood, and cerebrospinal fluid, and accurate data regarding the static equilibrium, have all contributed in recent years, to an earlier and more certain diagnosis of the character and localization of intracranial lesions.