MENINGITIS IN THE CAMPS.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 November 1916, Page 3

MENINGITIS IN THE CAMPS.

(Trom Our Special Correspondent.)

Wellington, Nov. 8., Deaths from cerebro-spinal meningitis continue to occur in the military camps, despite all the precautions taken by the medical officers of the Defence Department. It may be said confidently that the camps are not to blame. The conditions there, according to the expert testimony from several quarters, compare favorably with the conditions in military camps in other parts of the Umpire. Cerebro-spinal meningitis is not peculiar to ~Ke\v Zealand; it is found wherever masses of men are congregated together for training, and the deathrate from tli is source lias been very much 'higher in some other countries than in New Zealand. There was an idea at one time that the disease had its origin in the camps, but since the Defence Department undertook the examination of every recruit immediately upon his arrival in «unp, no fewer tftan. 22 men have been found to be "carriers" of the germ that gives rise to the trouble. The men were all apparently healthy, but they were capable of transmitting the disease to others. Why, then, does cerebrospinal meningitis not appear frequently among civilians? The answer appears to be that the disease is encouraged by the bringing together of many men under the conditions inevitable in a training camp. The efforts of the medical authorities just now are being directed to the detectioij of every "carrier" as he arrives in camp, in order that be may be treated and rendered innocuous before any harm is done.