Moniliasis with Meningeal Involvement

Abstract

Fatal cases of moniliasis are of such infrequency that their recording in any event seems worth while, and when a case is complicated by meningeal invasion, it becomes apparently unique, as is seen from a fairly careful combing of the literature, and for that reason especially significant. It is interesting to note how infrequently involvement of the central nervous system by any of the higher forms of bacteria, or fungi imperfecti, occurs. Only scattered references can be found in the literature. The most common of these infections is that by Torula histolytica. Since Stoddard and Cutler' s 1 report of two cases in 1916, about thirty additional cases have been recorded, in twenty-four of which the infection was confined to the central nervous system. Smith and Crawford 2 recently compiled these reports, and their bibliography is the most complete to date. Blastomycotic infections of the meninges have been recorded, notably by Badham,3 Swift and Bull,4 Williams 5 of Australia and Caspar 6 in the United States. Hyslop, Neal, Kraus and Hillman 7 described a case of sporotrichosis meningitis and cited about ten cases recorded in the Italian literature with five others from miscellaneous sources. Cann and Hallis s recently reported a case of actinomycotic meningitis in a girl of 9 years, and said that Hobert had found reports of twenty-five other cases in the literature, none of them proved culturally. Rembridge 9 and co-workers isolated a new species of Endomyces from a case of meningitis. No instances of Monilia infection of the