CASE HISTORY

A frail, senile old lady who had had repeated falls for two years with increasing mental apathy. Admitted after a fall downstairs, bruised, stuporous and incontinent.

PATHOLOGY

The specimen consists of two contiguous sections of the right occipital lobe of the brain. In the medial aspect is a dark-red sharply defined, V shaped area of softening, corresponding in outline to an infolded cortical convolution. It looks like an area of softening which has become soaked with extravasated blood. It is not like a primary haemorrhage for there is no bulging or laceration of the affected part. A larger, older area of brownish softening was found in the region of the left basal ganglia. These lesions are presumably due to sclerotic occlusion of smaller cerebral arteries though the actual vessels involved could not be identified with certainty.