This report includes cases of epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis at General Hospital No. 6, Fort McPherson, Georgia, from Oct. 1, 1917, to May 1, 1918, a period of seven months. Ten patients were treated and the diagnosis was confirmed in every case by the presence of the meningococcus in the spinal fluid.
Methods Employed in Care of Meningitis Cases.
—Meningitis patients were isolated in single rooms. Clothing, bed clothes, dishes, bedpans and urinals were sterilized. Throat cultures were taken from convalescent patients every four days until three negative cultures were obtained, and from physicians, nurses and attendants, every four days during their contact with patients. If a positive culture was obtained in a patient he was treated with a spray of dichloramin-T in chlorcosane. Physicians, nurses and attendants received this spray routinely every four hours.
Prophylactic Measures
—The following prophylactic measures were employed immediately on the diagnosis of meningitis being made: