Arizona republican., 1899-03-24
Peculiar Phase of CerebrO-Spinal
 Meningitis.
SEEM TO FOLLOW BLOODSHED
IT Has Made It's Appearance in Many Large Cities and is Claimed 10 Always Come Immediately After War-DocforS Puzzled and Nak- ing SfrcnouS Efforts 10 Discover Means of Combating if.

ord of twenty deaths from cerebro- spinal meningitis occurring in this city in the course of three weeks, the med ical fraternity is devoting considerable thought to this disease, although it is not expected that it will at any time assume very large proportions, as it is not very contagious. The percentage of fatalities among those attacked by the disease is its most marked charac- teristic; no adequate remedy has as yet been discovered, and the mortality rate is variously estimated at from 50 to 90 per cent, far in excess of that of any other contagious or non-contagious dis ease.
 According to the views of many rep Ttable physicians, the late war had something to do with the epidemic. Specialists on the subject have noted during the past century that after every great war some sort of an cpl demic of a severe form of cerebro spinal meningitis has occurred. This holds true of the great European wars, and in a marked degree of our own
 
 eral spread of spotted fever in every section of the country The epidemic continued year after year, completely baffling the skill of the physician, and it was not until the middle of the seV- enties that it gradually died out While the physicians cannot explain this phe- nomenon in detail, they believe that 
 imperfect diet, the prolonged periods of suffering and the hrIddling together of thousands af men, conduce to the spread of the disease. Institutions where many people are in contact have also been known to be subject to at- tack, and this, as Dr. WCdward pointed cut today, seemed to indicate that the disease was more or less contagious. At the same time, however, the health department noticed that no two cases occurred in the same house, showing that the danger of contagion was of a low order. Isolation Of the patient is recommended, although not insisted upon.
 The contagion may, it is said, be spread by men who are not themselves suffering from the disease. Of the twenty people who died of this disease in this city net one, it is reported was soldier in the late war, ard only one . member of the navy, so that this. at first, would hardly indicate that the soldiers had infected others. The ev- idence appears, however, to be in that ,I;- is now most prevalent in all those cit ies in the neighborhoOd of which the military camps were located last sum- nler There was an epidemic of tho disease at Chickamauga and one at Savannah fast summer, and the health recCEds of the neighboring cities now indicate a general prevalence of the disease. Camp Alger, it is thought, may have affected Washington.
 Dr. Woodward is not convinced that the war had anything to do with the present epidemic: This disease comes from time to time,' he said, and it may be mere accident that it is prevalent now. just after the war. But those who have studied the disease thoroughly assert that every epidemic is preceded by a war.
 There is a disease known as cerebrO-spinal meningitis" Dr. Wood | ward continued, "and one known as spinal meningitis. The one attacks only the brain, and the other the spine. | The two are distinct diseases, and you cannot get one by contagion of the other. There are two forms of cerebro- l spinal meningitis. In enc case it is a secondary trouble, having resulted | from some other illness and is often | associated with tuberculosis. In this l form we come across deaths resulting from meningitis ever so often, some | times several deaths within a month, and then again we hear of no cases fer many months at time. 1
 The second kind of cerebro-spinal | meningitis exists in the epidemic form Yes, perhaps you can call it primary though we are not sure that some | epidemics of spotted fever are rare, and of very peculiar character. They come only once in many years, and when they do come they stay for q long time. The epidemics are never confided to one locality, but reports Of fatalities begin to come in almost simultaneously frCm cities widely sep arated We have spinal meningitis now in nearly all the cities of the east. Spotted fever epidemics differ also from other epidemics, in that cOm-