Report on epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis in India / by C.J. Robertson-Milne.

  • Robertson-Milne, C.J.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report on epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis in India / by C.J. Robertson-Milne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    9/78 (page 3)
    It will be evident, then, that although the disease may exist in two or more countries simultaneously, yet no connection is traceable between these outbreaks, for the disease apparently does not follow the ordinary lines of traffic and commerce. Such being the case, no purpose would be served by reiterating the history of the disease in Europe, North America, or elsewhere. This has been already sufficiently well done in the monographs mentioned above. With regard to Asia, I have found a solitary record of the occurrence of the disease outside India. Dr. Bruce Low (4) states that about 1874-1875 the disease was epidemic in Persia This period is an interesting one, for thp disease was then more prevalent than it had been, and in addition to Persia it was reported from other places for the first time. Among these was Fiji, into which the disease was introduced in 1876 (6). About the same time it seems to have appeared in India ; prior to this date no trace of its occurrence is to be found in the numerous writings and researches of Indian medical officers which I have been able to consult. Neither Twining (7) nor Morehead (8) mention it at all. Maclean (9) and Fayrer (10) are similarly silent on this subject. Chevers (11) states that some three cases resembling the description of the disease came under his objection, and he' adds that Ewart, Goodeve, and Duka never saw a case, although the two latter watched sedulously for the disease. Macpherson, he adds, treated a suspicious case in an East Indian girl in Calcutta. It would seem that Vandyke Carter (12) was the first to meet with cerebro-spinal fever in India. In Appendix B of his book on spirillum fever under Concurrent Fevers at Bombay, he describes the clinica and pathological appearances of what seems to have been an instance of the disease. He also notes that he had seen three other attacks in boys aged about fifteen, presenting typical symptoms including herpetic and petechial eruptions, all of whom recovered. Several of his cases of remittent fever at the same time exhibited unusual meningeal symp- toms, and in the autopsy of one of these the pathological appearances resembled those of cerebro-spinal fever; in two other cases admitted moribund a similar state of affairs was revealed after death. He writes finally, All these instances probably belong to one series since suppurative meningitis is not known to occur in ordinary malarial fevers. Although Carter did not recognise the malady, it seems possible from the above that a small epidemic of cerebro-spinal fever occurred in Bombay in 1878. In 1886 at a meeting of the Bombay Medical and Physical Society to discuss a communication on the prevalence of cerebro-spinal fever in the Nara (Bind) Jail, (13)