[Birth of an illness, exemplified by Menière disease]

Martin Luther's history and a case report by Grapengiesser in 1801 demonstrate that there were typical clinical manifestations of Menière's disease long before Menière's description. Luther suspected Satanic inflictions as cause of his disease; later on clinical pictures of this kind were interpreted as cerebral apoplectiform congestions, or as symptoms of a psychosis. It is Menière's merit to have shown that lesions of the inner ear can cause deafness, tinnitus and vertigo without involving the middle ear, the acoustic nerve or the brain. The biography of Prosper Menière (1799-1862) is briefly outlined. He made his pioneering observation between 1834 and 1838 when he had to attend to a young lady who after catching a cold presented with vertigo and deafness on both ears, and died 5 days later. He reported on this case in an annotation to his translation of W. Kramer's textbook on otology in 1848, but did not mention the vertigo. It was only in 1861 that he described the complete syndrome he had discovered, referring in detail to the case and the post mortem findings of 25 years ago to prove his hypothesis that lesions in the inner ear can cause such symptoms. Following his presentation a controversy prevailed for many decades about the question whether there is an idiopathic Menière's disease or not. This is highlighted by quotations from the literature. The first audiogram-like picture of the hearing loss involving all frequencies was presented by Gradenigo in 1892.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)