The 68 patients surveyed in this paper form a companion group to the equal number who have been discharged from hospital and of whom a follow-up study has been published by Frankl and Mayer-Gross (1947). The patients' condition was studied during the early months of 1947, when they had remained in hospital from 1 to 4 years after operation or had returned after an unsuccessful attempt at discharge. To what extent they have to be considered as failures will be seen in the paper. They are of special interest not only as a contrast to the more successfully treated patients, but also because a closer observation of the course of their illness was possible than with the discharged group. Being under constant clinical observation since the operation, all significant changes in their condition have been recorded and the important problem of relapse, neglected in the large literature on leucotomy, can be discussed on the basis of these observations. Finally, an answer was sought to the question of why these patients should have reacted less favourably to the operation than their fellows.