For more than a decade otologists have been occupied with devising ingenious and complicated operations to relieve deafness caused by otosclerosis. They have thus lost sight of the principle that the scientific method of investigation of disease is to endeavour to discover the cause and thereafter to devise a cure based on precise knowledge of etiology and pathology. This communication is presented in the hope that it may stimulate interest in those aspects of the disease which will assist in the discovery of its origin.