Owing to the extreme fragility of the brain tissue in new-born infants, postmortem examination of an intracranial pathologic process often gives difficulty in determining its extent. Usually the point of rupture of the vessels may be found, but the amount of injury produced by the extravasated blood is frequently impossible to determine.
In an effort to obviate this difficulty, Schoenholz1 suggested that information concerning the pathologic changes of intracranial hemorrhage might possibly be obtained by the injection of some material impermeable to the roentgen rays into the cerebral vessels. He attempted to show this by the use of red lead solutions. He showed in a rather striking manner the normal intracranial circulation, and in three infants dying of intracranial hemorrhage he showed the extent of the pathologic changes by means of the shadow cast by the metal after its extravasation from the vessels.
Appreciating the difficulty of postmortem examinations