For many years it has been a recognized fact that headache and choking of the optic disks may occur in conjunction with a syphilitic infection. In 1893, Uhthoff1 stated that choked disk was a common occurrence in cerebral syphilis and that, except for cerebral tumor, cerebral syphilis was the most frequent cause of this condition. Two years later, a similar conclusion was reached by Rochon-Duvigneaud.2 Among 2,636 patients in the early stages of syphilis examined by Fehr3 between 1910 and 1912, he found papilledema in about 0.5 per cent. Soon after the advent of arsphenamine several authors reported cases in which this drug was held to be responsible for the development of papilledema. Fehr, however, showed by his statistics that such changes of the optic nerve occur far more frequently in untreated patients than in those treated by arsphenamine. A few years later (1916), Wilder4 concluded