FROM THE earliest days of operations for tumors of the brain up to the past twenty years, all attempts to extirpate solid growths which had apparently arisen from the pineal body (pinealomas, teratomas or gliomas) resulted in immediate operative fatality or the patient, if he chanced to survive the operation, died of a recurrence or of some other cause within a few months or, at most, a year or two. These early experiences were important, however, in demonstrating at least that it was possible to approach the pineal region by one or another operative procedure. In particular, the method devised by Brunner (cited by Rorschach1), and later modified and used by Dandy,2has been the procedure of choice for operations on pineal tumors by most neurosurgeons. That any operation designed for the removal of a pineal tumor is an extremely hazardous undertaking is well known to all neurosurgeons,