Oscar Wilde, whose plays still entertain audiences 100 years after his death, did not die of syphilis but from a chronic ear infection that spread to the brain.
Biographies of the author of The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband attribute his death in a Paris hotel on November 30th, 1900, to meningitis caused by the venereal disease. But South African researchers have found evidence which puts the blame on a relapse from a long-standing ear infection.
"We've scotched the idea that he had syphilis. There is no clinical evidence that he had syphilis. We've defined the ear condition that he had," Dr Ashley Robins, of the University of South Africa, said.
"The tragedy was that he had chronic and destructive middle ear disease that eventually killed him by spreading to the brain."
Dr Robins believes the syphilis rumour persisted, despite the lack of medical evidence, because it suited the scandal and controversy that often surrounded the writer.
Wilde's renowned wit and intellectual prowess were evident right up to his death, which makes syphilis even less likely.
Ear infections were very common before the age of antibiotics but Wilde suffered from a particularly severe form of the disease called cholesteotoma.
Dr Robins and his colleague, Dr Sean Sellars, in a report in the Lancet medical journal today, argued that Wilde's condition worsened during his imprisonment in England after a sensational trial for "gross indecency".
During Wilde's years in prison Dr Robins said the ear condition worsened and he eventually had an operation in his Paris hotel several weeks before he died.
Dr Robins and Dr Sellars, a specialist in ear, nose and throat disease, searched through medical literature and believe it was a major ear operation, a radical mastoidectomy, to clear out the infection.