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Palsies of the lower cranial nerves caused by a compressive pathological carotid artery are not common. Three cases of paralysis of the hypoglossal nerve, hypoglossal and vagus, hypoglossal, glossopharyngeal and vagus nerves, are reported. In 2 patients the symptoms were related to an extracranial carotid artery aneurysm below the base of the skull and in 1 patient to a spontaneous carotid dissecting aneurysm. It is possible that some localized arterial dissecting aneurysms evolve to a localized aneurysmal sac, especially if they are located between Cl and the base of the skull. The tongue paralysis disappeared in 2 patients.

An acute administration of various doses of apomorphine, a dopaminergic agonist, and of dopaminergic receptor blockers (domperidone, sulpiride, haloperidol), was double-blindly achieved in a parkinsonian patient also suffering from dyskinesia. Apomorphine improved tremor and dyskinesia proportionnally to the dose. Domperidone did not prevent from this beneficial effect whereas sulpiride or haloperidol revealed a competitive antagonism versus apomorphine.

The authors report an observation in which four siblings were affected by both multiple cutaneous epitheliomatosis and complex but relatively stereotyped neurological disorders. Clinically, the main syndrome was cerebello-spinal ataxia with involvement of the anterior horns of the spinal cord with less marked pyramidal and extra-pyramidal features. Neuropathological examination of one of the cases revealed lesions of essentially cerebello-spinal degeneration suggestive of Menzel's disease. The possible connection between the neural and cutaneous lesions is discussed. All the various etiological categories possible have been ruled out; not one being entirely satisfactory, except for the very broad category of genetic neuro-dermatoses.

The authors describe the case of a patient of 22 with hypertension and livedo reticularis who, after presenting with a left brachial monoparesis became progressively demented over a period of five years and died at the age of 27 from a cerebro-meningeal haemorrhage. Angiographically, diffuse distal obliteration of the cerebral arteries was seen with deep networks of the moyamoya type involving the lenticulostriate arteries; similar changes were present in the upper left limb. Histopathological investigations showed obliterative thromboangiitis affecting not only the cerebrum, the brain stem and the cerebellum, but also the viscera. Analysis of this case and consideration of the theoretical possibilities leads the authors to urge that thromboangiosis together with its cerebral manifestations should be considered a nosological entity.