Tumors involving the spinal cord or its coverings in the vicinity of the level of the foramen magnum are rare. Cruveilhier1in 1856 reported a neoplasm the size of a pea in the left olive of the medulla in a patient who during life presented no symptoms. Although other isolated cases have been recorded by Bälz,2Leyden,3Bostroem4and Gowers and Wätzoldt,5these tumors have usually been observed incidentally at necropsy, and in almost every instance the clinical records have been meager. Martin and Greenfield6presented the complete clinical record for three years, with the necropsy report in a case of fibroblastic meningioma, weighing 32.5 Gm., that filled the cisterna magna. Elsberg7described a case of an aneurysm of the right vertebral artery that caused signs of extramedullary compression of the medulla and upper cervical region of the cord, but the patient died