R ECENT reviews of Nocardia infections in man 8,8,~6 have devoted only scanty attention to the neurological aspects of this disease; yet in 56 cases of proven human nocardiosis collected to date, involvement of the central nervous system was demonstrable in 18 patients, and often appeared directly responsible for the fatal outcome. The first pathogenic aerobic Actinomyces was isolated from cattle by Nocard 21 in 1888, and called Nocardia farcinica by Trevisan 25 in 1889. In 1890, Eppinger TM isolated pathogenic aerobic Actinomyces from a brain abscess of a 5~-year-old glassworker suffering from a pseudo-tuberculous infection and described the organism as Cladothrix asteroides. In 1896, Blanchard 5 renamed the organism Nocardia asteroides. For many decades these organisms, which in their early stages of growth on culture media show structure similar to that of Actinomyces, were considered intimately related to the latter. Unlike Actinomyces, Nocardia is aerobic and primarily saprophytic, occurring on grasses, grains, and in the soil. In staining reactions it may or may not be acid-fast. Occasionally it gains access to the human body by airborne contamination or by introduction into previously traumatized tissues; and it may then disseminate widely by hematogenous routes. While rather sensitive to sulfonamides, it is relatively resistant to penicillin. Pulmonary involvement in nocardiosis constitutes the most common clinical manifestation, thus, like actinomycosis proper, often simulating tuberculosis. While neurological complications are relatively rare in actinomycosis, involvement of the central nervous system, most often in the form of brain abscesses, has been reported in approximately 30 per cent of the cases of nocardiosis, thus rendering the prognosis of the latter more serious. Since all known cases of nocardiosis of the central nervous system published to date, except 1 case of meningitis, were diagnosed either preterminally or post mortem, the following case report of a 4~-year-old Negro, at present alive and well 15 months following excision of a Nocardia brain abscess, appears worthy of recording.