Twenty-four years ago, an operation was performed in the now famous case of Clark and Taylor1for a tic douloureux of the left ear and external auditory canal which had been present for two years. It was a paroxysmal intermittent pain without known cause with "not only a stabbing pain in front of the ear, but also a steady pain in the depths of the ear, on the anterior wall of the external meatus. At times there was a moderate degree of neuralgic pain in all three distributions of the trifacial and in the occipital region." A number of neurologists were forced to conclude, guided by the fact that Hunt's2zoster zone of the geniculate lay just in the interior of the auricle and external canal, that the lesion was a true tic douloureux of the geniculate system of the facial nerve. Under ether anesthesia by a unilateral