THE CHEMOTHERAPY AND SERUM THERAPY OF PNEUMOCOCCUS AND STREPTOCOCCUS MENINGITIS: VI. THE CEREBRAL-CISTERNAL-SPINAL LAVAGE METHOD OF TREATMENT FOR SEPTIC MENINGITIS

Abstract

In the series of papers1published two years ago on the chemotherapy and serum therapy for pneumococcus and streptococcus meningitis, I reported occasional successful results in the treatment for severe experimental diffuse meningitis of dogs by lavage of the lateral ventricles, cisterna magna and spinal subarachnoid space with warm physiologic solution of sodium chloride followed by the intraventricular and intracisternal injections of pneumococcus antibody solution or antistreptococcus serum. Not frequently lavage alone with physiologic solution of sodium chloride resulted in recovery, so that the opinion was expressed that thorough washing of the ventricles to the cistern and lumbar region of the cord was the more important of the two phases of the method of treatment. Among some of the dogs that succumbed to the disease under this method of treatment, necropsies showed the presence of purulent meningitis over the cerebral hemispheres, indicating the necessity of modifying