Editor,—The herpes virus family, especially herpes simplex virus (HSV) and varicella zoster virus (VZV), has been associated with acute retinal necrosis (ARN)1 2 and these viruses also represent an important cause of encephalitis.3 Cases of retinitis in patients with a history of previous herpetic encephalitis, although rare, have been reported4 5; a delay between the diagnosis of encephalitis and the onset of ocular symptoms has been reported to be as long as from 1 to 5 months,6 7 but an interval of up to 5 years has been recorded.8 We report here two patients who developed the clinical picture of ARN 7 and 17 years after having had herpetic encephalitis.