[Subarachnoid hemorrhage]

At first we state here a synopsis of the different kinds and causes of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SA): spontaneous, traumatic, surgical. The most frequent cause of a spontaneous SA is a vascular malformation (an aneurysm or an arterio-venous anomaly). The main part of the paper deals with aneurysm-bleeding: the symptoms and signs, the natural course of the illness, its complications (recurrent hemorrhage, arterial spasm, hydrocephalus) and the diagnostic as well as the therapeutic suggestions. We do not recommend the modern trend of very early operations in the acute state of the hemorrhage except for the few patients with very slight bleeding.