IT IS common knowledge that there is considerable difference of opinion in the medical profession concerning the methods and efficiency of the treatment of posterior protrusions of the nucleus pulposus from ruptured lumbar intervertebral disks. Underlying this there is an even greater divergence of views about the criteria that must be met before diagnosing this condition.In a recent group of papers, Magnuson1 points out that a fine differential diagnosis is necessary in low-back cases and that the recent neurosurgical approach to this diagnostic problem, which has been made "mainly from this standpoint of root pressure from a ruptured intervertebral . . .