Abstract
Observations of body sway were made on a subject who had lost all vestibular functions as a result of meningococcus meningitis. The loss of vestibular function was established by the complete absence of responses to Caloric and Barany Chair tests. Within 3 mos. of his hospitalization this subject''s body sway with eyes open or eyes closed was not pathologically large. Correlations between measurements of body sway and postrotational nystagmus in a Barany Chair were not significantly greater than zero (N = 45). The findings were interpreted as indicating that man may maintain stable posture despite loss of vestibular function and that measurements of body sway cannot be used to detect vestibular defects.