History
The condition known as acoustic neurilemoma was first described by Sandefort of Leyden in 1777: he describes postmortem findings of what was probably an acoustic neurilemoma. Several other questionable reports of such lesions appeared in the next few decades. However, it is to that pioneer of neurology, Charles Bell, that we owe our first clinical-pathological presentation of what is without any question a case of acoustic neurilemoma. Together with the help of John Whiting in 1830 such a report was published as an appendix to his classical monograph on the nervous system. It remains such a masterpiece of clinical observation that little since has been added from the point of view of symptom description of the advanced case. Part of this is reproduced here in John Whiting's letter to Bell5:I found that she still had a distressing sensation on the left side of her face, etc., although