The severe, almost continuous pain referred to the distribution of one or more branches of the gasserian ganglion during the acute stage of trigeminal herpes usually disappears with the subsidence of the cutaneous lesions. Occasionally pain persists from three to six weeks, and a few patients suffer more or less severely for three or four months. In exceptional cases pain of great severity persists for years, in some without fluctuations, in others varying in intensity, but with exacerbations as severe as those of trigeminal neuralgia. It is in the latter group, in which incapacitating pain may persist for the duration of the patient's life, that alcohol injections or section of the sensory root of the gasserian ganglion seem indicated. Unfortunately even the latter procedure may not give complete relief, as in the two cases reported here.
REPORT OF CASES
Case 1.
—Mrs. C. D., aged 70, entered the University Hospital,