The possibility of cardiovascular disease as a result of vagus and sympathetic involvement is not an original idea of ours, but there are no cases reported in the literature in which the authors considered this possibility seriously. At necropsy the vagi and sympathetics are frequently found to be involved by neurofibromas in patients that during life had been afflicted with von Recklinghausen's disease. The most extensive postmortem studies of generalized neurofibromatosis show that the vagi are the most frequent of the cranial nerves to be involved, but when involved the tumors are usually outside the dura. Céstan states that involvement by neurofirbomas could cause death by tachycardia, vomiting, difficulty in swallowing and consequent aspiration pneumonia. Healy's1 case, which showed tachycardia (90-120), a high grade optic neuritis with a mottled paleness in the center of the exudate and the insensitive cornea is the nearest counterpart to case 1 (which report