Middletown transcript., 1883-12-28
SPINAL MENINGITIS.
BY BILL NYE.

DflRIly say SOnl6GAlllS III SsuooCl ~ HiAS
innumerable inquiries | have received.
Up to the moment had a notion OF
getting some meningitis, l had never
employed a physician. Since then
have been thrown in their society
great deal. Most Of them are very
pleasant and scholarly gentlemen, who
will not soon be forgotten but one OF
them, whom we will call Dysart, to
distinguish from the rest, doctored me
first for pneumonia, then for intiam-
matory rheumatism, and finally, when
death was contiguous, advised me that
| must have change Of scene and rest.
1 told him that if he kept onprescrib-
ing for me l thought might depend
on both. Change Of physicians, how
ever, saved my life. Dysart, the horse
doctor. a few weeks afterward, admin
istered a subcutaneous morphine squirt
in the arm Of a healthy servant girl,
because she had the headache, and she
is now with the rest of this veterinarians
patients in land that is fairer than
this.
She lived six hours after she was pre-
scribed for. He gave her change of
scene and rest. He has quite thriv-
ing little cemetery filed with the peo-
pie who have succeeded in cording up
enough of his change of scene and rest
to last them through all eternity. He
was called once to prescribe for a man
whose head had been caYed in by
stone matchbox, and after treating the
man for asthma and blind staggers, he
prescribed rest and change of scene for
him, too. The poor asthmatic is now
breathing the extremely rarifed air OF
the New Jerusalem.
Meningitis is derived from the Latin
Ieninges, membrane, and-itiS, an affix
denoting Inflammation, so that, strictly
speaking, meningitis is the inaamma-
ton of membrane, and when applied
to the spine, or cerebrum, is called
spinal meningitis, or cerebro-spinal
meningitis, &C., according to the part
of the spine or brain involved in the in
flammation. Meningitis is character
istic and result Of so-called spotted
fever, and by many it is deemed identi.
cal with it.
When we come to consider that the
spinal cord OF marrow runs down
through the long bony shaft made by
, the vertebre, and that the brain ant
spine, though connected, are bound III
: in one continuous bony wall and GOV
cred with this inhamed membrane, il
4 is not difficult to understand that tht
D thing is very hard to get at. If you
S throat gets infamed, doctor asks yol
: to run your tongue out into societ,
o about yard and a half, and he prize
f your mouth open with one Of Roger
S Brothers spoon handles. Then he j
/. able to examine your throat as he woul'
page of the Congressional Record
o and to treat it with some local applica
It ton. When you have spinal menin
II gifts, however, the doctor tackles yo
5, with bromides, ergots, ammonia, iodine
d chloral hydrate, codi, bromine Of ammo
d MIA. hasheesh, bismuth, yalerianate [
n ammonia, morphine sulph, nux vomicS
turpentine emulsion, yoX humana, re
a. magnus, opium, cantharides, Dover
powders, and other bric-a-brac. Thes
remedies are masticated and acted upo
by the salivary glands, passed down I'll
asophegas, thrown into the society {
old gastric, submitted to the peculia
IL motion of the stomach and thorough
> chymifed, then forwarded through tn
pyIoric orfice into the smaller intestine
where they are touched up with bill,
- and later on handed over through til
. lacteals, thoracic duct, &C., to the va'
I circulatory system. Here it is yanke
back and forth through the heart, lung
" " and capillaries, and if anything is le
! ! to fork over to the disease, it has
squeeze into the long, bony, air-tigl
: socket that holds the spinal cord. A
- this is done without seeing the patient
!, spinal cord before or after taking.
it could be taken out and hung over
- clothes-line and cleansed with benzir
> and then treated with insect powde
or rolled in corn-meal, or preserved
" alcohol and then put back, it would
= all right but you can't. You pull
y mans spine out of his system and he
= bound to miss it, no matter how car
full you have been about it. 1t is diff
cult to keep house without the spin
II You need it every time you cook
meal. If the spinal cord could be pullt
- - by a dentist and put away in pounde
r. ice every time it gets hot-box, spin
= meningitis would lose its stinger
j was treated by thirteen physician
" whose names l may give in futu
- article. They were, as l said, men
u q. shall long remember. One Of them sa
y very sensibly, that meningitis was ge
10 orally over-doctored. I told him til
- l agreed with him. said that if
Il Il, should have another year Of meningit
{ and thirteen more doctors, wou
as M have to postpone my trip to EuroT
- where l had hoped to go and cultiva
I'M I'M my voice. I've got a perfectly love
7" voice if could take it to Europe al
rs have it sand-papered and vanished a
=" mellowed down with beer and bologi
But was speaking Of my physician
. c. -.