HEREDITARY SENSORY RADICULAR NEUROPATHY headache which was always occipital, sometimes quite high up, and at others more over the upper part of the neck. Its character varied from a continuous ache to a rapid, shooting pain. It could be" dreadful". She had had one daily in the previous few months. Deafness began in 1921 and had steadily increased, so that by 1936 she was almost completely deaf. There had been no tinnitus. She stated that she often felt that she might fall when going downstairs and had to hold on to the bannister. For five or six years she had been unable to walk in the dark without some support. Her gait had been unsteady for three years and she tottered while walking.

Seven to eight years earlier she had had to give up needlework as she could not feel the needle distinctly with her fingers. Proper feeling was absent in the hands, and she now could not sayexactly what she was holding. For quite two or three years she had had no thermal sensation in the hands and had burned herself. In the previous six months blisters had appeared on many fingers-probably the results of scalds. She burned her right leg three years earlier, and lost the right little toe through a burn, which was quite painless, two years earlier. An ulcer on the left leg was due to a burn with a hot water bottle three months before admission to hospital and showed no sign of healing. She had had pins and needles sensations in both hands and feet in the past but not at all latterly. She thought that muscular power in the arms was normal, but diminished in the legs. There had been occasional incontinence of urine but no pain, difficulty, frequency, or nocturia. Shestated that the bowels were always regular and there had been no incontinence or urgency. Her nephew later stated that she had been liable to attacks of diarrhoea for some years but not in the months preceding examination. Her sight had deteriorated and she wore glasses.