Diabetes Insipidus Associated with Pinealoma Transplant in the Tuber Cinereum *

To utilize tumors as a method for the localization of function, or to demonstrate dysfunction, is a precarious undertaking for several reasons. Chief among these, perhaps, is that the neoplasm may be too large, destroying too much tissue, and encroaching upon too many nuclei or nerve tracts. Occasionally an instance does occur, where either the original growth or a metastatic nodule is localized to a definite area and involves an important region so sharply, without a destruction of surrounding tissue, that certain dysfunction may be attributed to it. Frequently lesions of this kind are of greater value in the study of anatomical-functional relationships than are experimentally produced traumatic lesions. It is the purpose of this paper to present a case of a pineal tumor which had become implanted in the tuber cinereum without involvement of the hypophysis cerebri, the dinical picture being that of a progressive diabetes insipidus which terminated in hyperpyrexia.