Head Injuries and Meningitis.

THE following cases have been selected from the files of the Division of Neuropathology in the University of Toronto to illustrate the types of head injury which may cause death from meningitis. The fatal infection of the meninges may occur at the time of the injury, killing the patient within a few days or weeks of the accident, but its onset may be delayed for years after the head injury. Three of the seven cases described below fall into the latter group, the patients having apparently recovered from their head injuries shortly after their accidents and having shown no symptoms until the sudden onset of a rapidly fatal meningitis. The pneumococcus was the organism responsible for the meningitis in all these cases and, except for some variations mentioned in the text, the gross and microscopical pathological picture was typical of pneumococcal meningitis.