Neurologic complications, although infrequent, may follow spinal or general anesthesia. There are reports in the literature of cranial nerve palsies,1 hemiplegia2 and peripheral neuropathies2a following general as well as spinal anesthesia. Certain neurologic complications are prone to follow spinal anesthesia while others are more frequent after general anesthesia. Woltman found that convulsions, extrapyramidal rigidity and postoperative psychosis followed general anesthesia almost excluively.2a Courville has shown that the anoxic hypoxia associated with the administration of such weak anesthetic agents as nitrous oxide and ethylene can cause degenerative changes in the cerebral cortex and lenticular nucleus.3 On the other hand, headache,2 septic4 and aseptic meningitis,5 arachnoiditis,6 neuritis,7 myelitis8 and the cauda equina syndrome9 have been the complications most frequently reported following spinal anesthesia. It is on these complications, particularly the cauda equina syndrome, that our attention will be centered.