THE NECESSITY for surgical treatment is almost generally accepted in a number of cases of facial paralysis. I do not think that a serious man who has eyes to read and ears to hear will doubt the necessity of an immediate operation in a case of palsy of the seventh nerve complicating chronic otitis media. And I can also hardly imagine that anyone who has obtained the available knowledge about facial paralysis, directly after surgical interferences upon the ear, will not agree that in such cases immediate operative treatment is necessary in order to get the best possible results for the patients. On the other hand, not even the most fervent supporter1 of surgery in many other cases of these paralyses will decide to open the fallopian canal in cases of central palsy or to operate upon the mastoid if this approach cannot possibly ameliorate the pathological condition of