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Oscar Wilde, the brilliant poet, essayist and playwright died of otogenic intratemporal and intracranial complications in November 30th 1900 at the age of 46. Wilde's decease from otogenic bacterial meningitis appears all the more ironic when one considers the role his father, Sir William Wilde, played as one of the founding fathers of modern otology. William Wilde at the age of 17 was sent as apprentice to Abraham Colles at Dr Steven's Hospital in Dublin, and became a Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1837 aged 22. His book on aural surgery brought him acclaim by the time he was 38 years old. He devised and described the use of an incision through the skin and periosteum down to the bone in cases of aural suppuration in which there was obvious post-aural inflammation („Wilde's incision”). At the peak of the career in 1895, Oscar Wilde was found guilty of homosexual intercourse and was sentenced to two years of imprisonment and hard labour. For many years he was suffering from the right ear infection. As a consequence of the circumstances in the prison, his ear infection got worse, but it was neglected by the medical staff, despite Wilde's complaints about pain and loss of hearing accompanied by a foul discharge in his right ear. Four years later, when Wilde was living in a hotel in Paris, the infection flared up again and he was treated by Dr Maurice a'Court Tucker, a British embassy doctor. In October 10th 1900 a Parisian surgeon performed an operation on Wilde's right ear, probably of the kind that had been suggested by his father William Wilde. The lethal outcome was inevitable. Three days before Oscar Wilde's death, Dr Maurice Tucker and Dr Paul Claisse issued a medical report: „The diagnosis of meningoencephalitis must be made without doubt ”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]