Meningitis in infancy and childhood other than tubercular meningitis

Summary

• 1. 98 cases of pyogenic meningitis other than tubercular admitted into the Pediatric department at Madras during the 2 years 1950–1951 have been analysed with regard to etiologic agent, age incidence and end results. H. influenza meningitis tops the list with overwhelming incidence in infancy. Pneumococcal meningitis was also more prevalent in infancy than childhood while meningococcal type was distributed in all age groups.

• 2. Various methods of treatment used in H. influenza meningitis and pneumococcal meningitis are described. Better results were obtained with medium dosage streptomycin than with low dosage in H. influenza meningitis while chloromycetin and terramycin were used in too few to be able to assess their importance. Large dosage systemic penicillin (40,00,000 units a day) with minimal intrathecal penicillin yielded better results in pneumococcal meningitis.

• 3. The importance of early diagnosis, the procedure for the same and the importance and technique of smear diagnosis are all emphasized and described. The majority of our cases (60%) came to hospital for treatment more than 4 days after onset of symptoms, while 30% of our series came to hospital more than 10 days after onset of symptoms.