THE CASE of a 23-month-old girl, who died after an acute illness of a week, was studied in this hospital. The interrelationship of somatic disease and the pathological functioning and pathological anatomy of the central nervous system has been a topic of emphasis in the laboratory of neuropathology of this Institute. There is the principle that the kind, predilection, and distribution of lesions of the central nervous system are to be understood through the subtlety of the interrelation of multiple factors. This idea contrasts with the previous belief in the specificity of changes in the central nervous system. The emphasis on the interrelationship of somatic disease and changes in the functioning and anatomy of the central nervous system has given increasing meaningfulness to this principle. The neuropathological findings observed in this case seemed most consistent with a pathogenesis of bacterial toxins derived from a bacterial growth in the circulating blood,