On the Possible Uses of Lumbar Puncture in the Treatment of Otitic Meningitis

Sevestre . La clinique infantile, 1905, No. 9.—A child, aged 7, tapped twelve times in a month to the gross amount of 350 c.c. with improvement each time and complete recovery.

Franca C. Used 3 c.c. to 9 c.c. of 1 per cent, solution of lysol in children and 12 c.c. to 18 c.c. in adults. Deutsch. med. Wochenschr., 1905, xxxi, p. 789.

Papillon reported on February 6, 1906, to the Société de Pédiatrie de Paris a case in which he had injected a child, aged 3, with very severe symptoms of cerebrospinal meningitis, with 2 c.c. to 4 c.c. of a 1 per cent, solution of collargol into the subarachnoid (? subdural) space with a good result. He admits, however, that where the exudation on the spinal cord is very thick and prevents the cerebrospinal fluid from circulating there is little hope of recovery.

Vorschutz , Münch, med. Wochenschr., 1907, liv. p. 514, records five cases of acute epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis with Weichselbaum's bacillus treated by lumbar puncture, with complete recovery in four.

Lenharz , Of Hamburg, appears to have been the first to demonstrate the great value of systematic lumbar puncture in these cases. (Münch, med. Wochenschr, 1905, Deutsch. Archiv. f. klin. Med., 1905, lxxxiv, p. 81).

Bókay Records ten cases of recovery from cerebrospinal meningitis in patients, aged from six months to 12 years, treated by lumbar puncture. (Deutsch. med. Wochenschr., 1907, xxxiii, p. 1947).

Laurens Showed a case to the Soc. Méd. d'Hôp. November 15, 1907, of acute general septic meningitis, due to the enterococcus and following ear disease, in which recovery took place after daily lumbar puncture with injections of 5 c.c. of electrargol into the dural sac.

Widal Ramond also reported a similar case with recovery following lumbar puncture and injection into the dural sac of 005 c.c. of collargol.

Radmann . Sémaine Méd. Par., 1907, Centralbl. f. Chir. 1907, xxxiv, p. 1277.

Lenharz , Centralbl. f. Chir., 1907, 1277, Has had fifty sporadic cases of epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis with 51 per cent, of recoveries, and in the recent epidemic of the same fifty more with 37 per cent, of recoveries. He speaks highly of systematic spinal puncture.

Wilms , in the same discussion, also speaks highly of puncture.

Müller also praises it and supports Lenharz.