MARVELLOUS DRUG

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 99, 2 September 1942, Page 5

MARVELLOUS DRUG

TREATING MENINGITIS

NOW IN USE IN \iv\V ZEALAND

The huge drop in the mortality j rate in eerebro-spinal meningitis has been due to sulphapyrdinc, one of the "wonder" drugs of the sulplionamide group, "which is now used in New Zealand. At the beginning of the century meningitis was a dread disease which mortality averages of up to 60 per cent. In an epidemic in New York iu 1904-1905 out of 6755 capes 3455 were fatal. The introduction of serum treatment about 1906 brought some reduction in the death rate, but it. was not until about three years ago that the development of tlie sulphapyridine completely changed, the outlook on meningitis. Nowadays the mortality rate in most groups studied is less than 15 per cent of the cases', and frequently it is found, to be under 10 per cent. Dr. J. 11. Blakeloek, medical o nicer of health for Taranaki, saitL recently that in this area the death rate was about 10 per cent. II cases were' brought in early th'a expectation of life was even better. Meningitis is the subject of a recent book by an English authority, Dr. Denis Brinton, of London, who, after a close study of reports, makes the reassuring comment that "experience has encouraged the belief that the disease to-day is safer epidemically than many other infectious diseases."