Facial nerve is subject to injury at any point in the course from the cerebral cortex to the motor end plate in the face, so many etiologic varieties of facial paralysis may be encountered, including trauma, viral infection and the idiopathic. Since Sir Charles Bell (1829) demonstrated the role of the seventh cranial nerve in its motor innervation to the muscles of expression, many efforts and studies have attributed to diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to facial paralysis until this time. Authors have studied 45 cases of facial paralysis, excluding lesions, caused by otitis media, in the view of age, sex and etiologic distributions, the results of nerve excitability test, topographic diagnosis, and treatment for recent two and a half years (from January 1980 to June 1982). The results obtained are as follows : 1) The highest age incidence showed 11 cases (24.5%) in 3rd decade. 2) Among the total of 45 cases, male were 28 cases (62.2%) and female were 17 cases (37.8%). 3) The causes of facial paralysis were ; traumatic in 15 cases (33.3%), idiopathic (Bell's palsy) in 14 cases (31.1%), infectious (Ramsay-Hunt syndrome 7 cases and syphilitic 1 case) in 8 cases (17.8%), neoplastic in 3 cases (6.7%), congenital in 3 cases (6.7%), metabolic in 2 cases (4.4%). 4) Electric excitability test revealed signs of nerve degeneration at the initial visit in 14 cases (31%). 5) Topographically, the most common site of lesions was intratemporal between geniculate ganglion and stapedial branch. 6) In majority of our cases, we selected systemic steroid therapy for a conservative measure, and surgical management consisted of nerve decompression, nerve graft and repair.