, 1884-01-19
spinal MenginitIs.

taAA NAAaA VI NV III ~ VI IfANtARAAAN II
affords the patient, unless they have
enjoyed it themselves, that | have
decided to briefly say something in
answer to the innumerable inquiries
have received.
Up to the moment had a notion
OF getting some meningitis, had
never employed physician. Since
then ! have been thrown in their So
ciety great deal. Most Of them
were very pleasant and scholarly
gentlemep, who will not soon be for
gotten but one Of them, whom we
will call Dysart, to distinguish from
the rest, dOctOred me first for pneu-
mOnia, then for inflammatory rheu-
matism, and finally, when death was
contiguous, advised me that | must
have change of scene and rest.
told him that if he kept on pre-
scTibing for me l might depend on
both. Change of physicians, how
ever, saved my life. Dysart, the
horse doctor, few weeks afterward,
administered a subcutaneOus NOR
phlne 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
the l9nd that is faireE than this.
SheliVed six hours after she was
prescribed for. He gave her change
of scene and rest. He has quite a
thriving little cemetery filed with
people who have succeeded in cord
ing up enough of his change of scene
and rest to last them through all
eternity. He was called once to pre-
scribe for a man whose head had
been caved in with a stone match
box, and after treating the man for
asthma and blind staggers, he pre-
scribed rest and change of scene for
him, too. The poor asthmatic is now
breathing the extremely rarified air
of the New Jerusalem.
Meningitis is derived from the
Latin MeRiRgeS, membrane, tits, an
atiiX denoting Inflammation, so that,
strictly speaking, meningitis is the
Inflammation Of a membrane, and
when applied to the spine, or cere-
brum, is called spinal meningitis, or
cerebrO-spinal meningitis, ETC., ac-
cOrding to the part of the spine or
brain envolved in the Inflammation.
Meningitis is a characteristic and re-
suit of so called spotted fever, and
by many it is deemed identical
with it.
When we come to consider that
the spinal cord or marrow runs down
through the long bony shaft made
by the vertebrP, and that the brain
and spine, though connected, are
bound up in one continuous bOny
wall and covered with this infamed
membrane, it is not difficult to un-
derstand that the thing is very hard
to get at. If your throat gets in
famed, a doctor asks YOU to run
your tongue out into society about a
yard and a half, and he prizes your
mouth open with a spoon handle.
Then he is able to examine your
throat as he would a page of the Con-
gressiOnal Record, and to treat it
with some local application. When
you have spinal meningitis, how
ever, the doctor tackles you with
bromides, ergOts, ammonia, iodine,
chlOral hydrate, cOdi, bromide of
ammonia, hasheesh, bismuth, valer-
mate Of ammonia, morphine sulp.,
nuX vomica, turpentine emulsion,
vOX humana, rex magnus, opium,
cantharides, DOver's powders and
other bric-a-brac. These remedies
are masticated and acted upon by
the salivary glands, passed down the
aesophegas, thrown into the society
of old gastric, submitted to the pc
culiar motion of the stomach and
thoroughly chymified, then forward
cd thrOugh3 the pylOrlc orfice into
the smaller intestines, where they
are touched up with bile, and later
on handed over through the lacteals,
thOracic duct, etc, to the vast Circu-
IltOry system. Here it is yanked
back and forth through the heart,
lungs and capillaries, and if anything
is left to fork over to the disease, it
has to squeeze into the long, bOny,
uir-tight socket that holds the spinal
cord. All this is done without see
ing the patients spinal cord before
or after taking. If it could be taken
out and hung over a clothes-line and
cleansed with benzine and then
treated with insect powder, or rolled
in corn meal, or preserved in alcohol
and then put back, it would be all
right; but you can't. You pull
mans spine out of his system and he
is bound to miss it, no matter how
careful you have been about it.
1t is difficult to keep housVwithOut
a spine. You need 1t every time
you cook 4 meal If the spinal cord
could be pulled by dentist and put
away in pounded ice every time it
gets a hot-boX, spinal meningitis
wOuldlOse its stinger.
was treated by thirteen physi-
clans, whose names may give in a
future article. They were, as said,
men shall long remember. One Of
them said very sensibly, that mem
ingitis was generally over-dOctored.
L told him that agreed with him.
l said that if ! should haye another
year Of meningitis and thirteen more
doctOrs | would have tn DOstDDnp