The observation of a patient with typical herpes zoster who, sixteen months later, proved to have tuberculosis of the spine involving the same segments implicated in the zoster stimulated my interest in this subject. Mention of similar instances in the literature is indeed scanty. Standard textbooks on orthopedic surgery do not cite herpes zoster as an accompaniment or complication of tuberculosis of the spine. One work on neurology1 states that herpes zoster may occur in caries of the spine, but recent dermatologic and orthopedic literature contains no reference to it.
REPORT OF CASE
Mrs. E. L., aged 46, white, born in Minnesota, had had no pregnancies and no miscarriages. She had always enjoyed good health. The family history was negative for tuberculosis.In April, 1930, when I first saw her, she complained of a painful eruption in the left armpit. She presented numerous grouped vesicular lesions extending from a