SURGICAL TREATMENT of Meniere's disease has been of two basic types, destructive and conservative. Relief of vertigo without loss of cochlear function is the objective of conservative surgery, but this is a difficult ideal, and until recent times most operations performed were destructive in nature. Loss of hearing was felt to be a tolerable disability to secure relief of incapacitating vertigo, particularly in a disease which usually terminated in severe hearing loss. Early methods of surgical treatment were intercranial section of the auditory nerve ( 1904)1 and opening of the semicircular canals and vestibule ( 1904).2,3 The earliest attempt at conservatism was that of Bárány4 who in 1912 described relieving vertigo by elevation of the dura from the posterior face of the temporal bone. In 1927 Georges Portmann5 described the procedure bearing his name. Portmann felt that by opening the endolymphatic space, relief of the hydrops could be