SUMMARY A series of 14 patients with a protruded thoracic intervertebral disc is reported. We believe that the true incidence may be as high as one patient per million population per annum. Trauma, sometimes mild, seems to have played a significant role in this series. This fact coupled withpronounced numbnessand disagreeableparaesthesiae should suggest the diagnosis with thoracic spinal lesions. Armed with clinical suspicion, radiological verification of the lesion can be expected using a thorough myelographic technique supported if necessary by tomography. A posterolateral approach which combines laminectomy, complete excision of the ligamentum flavum, and the extradural removal of protruded disc is described. The technique is safe and effective.

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Methohexitone is an 'ultra-short' acting intravenous agent. It now enjoys widespread use as an anaesthetic agent for induction and can be used in repeated doses for more prolonged periods of anaesthesia. Wyant and Change (1959) and Dundee and Moore (1961) have stressed the very rapid recovery from 'hangover' effects after its use. Both groups of authors mention the abnormal muscle movements and hiccups often associated with the use of the drug. Riffin (1960), using a single channel bipolar EEG monitor while giving the drug, reported the appearance of 2 to 6 Hz waves of moderate voltage and a return to the pre-injection EEG pattern in two and a half to five minutes. Fibrillary movements of the face and lips were noted in several of his patients. He pointed out that methohexitone differed from earlier short-acting barbiturates in having no sulphur atom at the C2 position and a methyl group at the Ni position (see Fig.). So far no reports of seizures induced in normal people by