Some are due to direct spread from a collection of pus in relation to an erosion of the Tegmen tympani, either inside or outside the dura, others to infection carried by the veins, and in this way the infective material reaches the white matter; less frequently infection from the middle ear takes place along the peri-vascular lymph spaces.
"Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities--Head--Neck. Sixth Edition."
Alexander Miles Alexis Thomson
However Burke's ideas of "the sublime" may have predominated, his idea of the ludicrous was at this time uppermost; and in a few moments a poem was composed, the first line of which only has been preserved- "Piper erat fattus, qui brownum Tegmen habebat."
"An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800"
Mary Frances Cusack