In the relatively short space of forty years, subarchnoid hemorrhage has passed out of the category of a purely pathologic diagnosis to become a clinical entity capable of being recognized with almost absolute certainty during life. Gull,1 in speaking of this condition in 1859, stated that "we have at best no symptoms upon which to ground more than a probable diagnosis." However, the introduction by Quincke,2 in 1891, of lumbar puncture and the establishment by Froin,3 in 1904, of the criteria necessary to distinguish the cerebrospinal fluid in cases of spontaneous subarachnoid bleeding from that in cases of traumatic lumbar puncture made possible the antemortem diagnosis in a large percentage of cases. Interest in subarachnoid hemorrhage lagged another twenty years, however, until the first careful clinicopathologic study was presented by Symonds,4 in 1924.
The awakened interest in subarachnoid hemorrhage inevitably has brought forth many problems concerning