Primary spontaneous cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhoea'

The adjective 'spontaneous ' as applied to cerebro-spinal fluid rhinorrhoea simply indicates that the discharge is not an immediate or delayed result of trauma. Cases of spontaneous cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhoea can be subdivided into two distinct groups, secondary and primary. In the secondary group an obvious cause for the leak is present. This-may be some gross lesion producing erosion of the skull base; examples of such lesions are osteo-mata of the nasal sinuses, intracranial neoplasms, particularly pituitary adenoma and craniopharyn-gioma, and internal hydrocephalus due to neoplastic or other cause; the lesion may be a meningocele or or meningo-encephalocele, the rhinorrhoea at times following attempts to treat the swelling by an intra