In recent times, knowledge of the far flung relations of the syndrome originally described by von Recklinghausen1in 1882 has made phenomenal progress. Von Recklinghausen considered the process to be essentially a hypertrophy of the mature connective tissue of normal nerves. He recognized several varieties of the disease and later objected to the term neurofibromatosis, because it gives a misleading impression of the nature of the disease. Further objections to the name "generalized neurofibroma" were advanced, because it was felt that undue emphasis was being placed on but a single aspect of a complex syndrome. Such a syndrome should be designated by a term broad enough to include all its recognized manifestations, but at the present time there is no better name than Recklinghausen's disease. The first descriptions of the gross anatomic lesions were made by Smith2in 1849. Fifteen years later Virchow3published his researches on