Epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis and its relation to other forms of meningitis : A report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts.

  • Massachusetts. Department of Public Health.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis and its relation to other forms of meningitis : A report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    OF THE PATHOLOGICAL LABORATORY, THE PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL, IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK. INTRODUCTORY. The prevalence of epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis in Massachusetts has been marked with much irregularity. An epidemic of unusual severity i5 1873 gave rise to an inves- tigation and report by Dr. J. B. Upham, which appeared in the report of the State Board of Health for that year. A summary of 517 cases reported by different physicians throughout the State was given in that report. Dr. Upham was particularly well qualified for this investigation by his previous acquaintance with the disease in Newbern, North Carolina, during the civil war. In considering the causes of the disease he paid particular attention to the influence of insanitary conditions as an active or predisposing cause. With regard to this he says : — The relation of insanitai'y conditions in and around the abode of the patient to its origin or supposed cause demands the most careful consideration. In weighing the evidence contained in the returns, I find the scale to be pretty evenly balanced in this par- ticular. The cases are distributed among all classes and grades of society, — the high and low, the rich and the poor, locations unexceptionable for situation, open to abundant light and air, and the pent-up hovels of the lowly and wretched, have all con- tributed to the material of the epidemic. We believe, therefore, that the primal origin of the disease is atmospheric, and, for the present, beyond our ken. Since Dr. Upham's report, great discoveries in regard to the aetiology of many of the infectious diseases have been made. The bacterium which can now be regarded as the