Some of the phenomena to which I shall refer have been described before, but usually without emphasis, so that they have been forgotten. We are familiar with the appearance of "wet brain," but we do not think easily of circumscribed cerebral edema. Further, repetition has served for proof that brain vessels are incapable of variation in size, and this, despite the presence of a muscular coat in the walls of the cerebral arteries, the known ability of epinephrin to blanch the cortex as it does the skin, and my own observation1 of sudden cortical devascularization as the first evidence of the onset of an epileptic seizure in a person not under the influence of a general anesthetic.
It is not easy to produce visible and palpable proof of angioneurotic edema affecting the brain, because no necropsy material exists on this subject, and were it obtainable, such circumscribed dropsies would be