Introduction An appreciable number of clinical studies, especially those from the last decade (Külz,1 in 1899, Edgar,2 in 1915, Camisasca,3 in 1950, Marullo,4 in 1950, Vigi,5 in 1950, and Profazio and Baravelli,6 in 1959) indicate that diabetes mellitus may give rise to a lesion of the inner ear characterized by a generally slowly progressing bilateral hearing loss of the perceptive type. At times, however, there may be Ménière-like attacks, with sudden onset of hearing loss accompanied by vestibular symptoms (Hegener,7 in 1908, Lang,8 in 1913, Benesi and Sommer,9 in 1929, Root,10 in 1946, Cojazzi,11 in 1950, Jørgensen,12 in 1959, and Jørgensen and Buch,13 in 1961). The discussion regarding the causes of the inner ear affection in diabetes has been purely hypothetical, there being only a very few and only early reports in the literature on the histology