Cerebral palsy--the correlation of clinical and pathological observations.

Although the causes of cerebral palsy are well known, it is often difficult to assign a cause in specific cases. In some cases, the cause may have been determined on the basis of the history and findings, only to be found in error at autopsy. In four of the five cases of cerebral palsy reported herein, there was correlation between the clinical findings and the neuropathological findings. In the fifth case, before the patient died, the cause of brain damage was thought to be measles encephalitis; but neuropathological evaluation at autopsy indicated that the brain was microcephalic and inadequately developed as a result of genetic factors.