Torula infection of the central nervous system is a rare disease but one which is of interest to the internist and the syphilologist as well as the neurologist. Clinically, in these cases a diagnosis of tumor or abscess of the brain, tuberculous meningitis, encephalitis or dementia paralytica is made, and frequently the true etiology is not revealed until autopsy is performed.
Rusk, in 1912, under the title "Systemic Oidiomycosis," was the first in this country to report a case of torula infection of the central nervous system. His report was antedated in Germany, however, by that of von Hansemann in 1905 and that of Türk in 1907, each of whom reported one case. It remained for Stoddard and Cutler in 1916 to describe the clinical characteristics of this disease and to isolate the causative organism by cultural methods, animal inoculations and histologic sections. They differentiated this condition from other mycotic