The Normal Cerebro-Spinal Fluid in Children.

For comparison with the findings in disease, it is necessary to determine the characteristics of the cerebro-spinal fluid in healthy infants and children. Comparatively little work has been done on this subject. In the latest work on the cerebro-spinal fliuid. The Human Cerebro-spinal Fluid, published by the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Diseases, New York, McLean and Mcintoshl introduce their chapter on the cerebro-spinal fluid in infants and young children, with a brief account of the normal fluid. They do not state the number of cases examined, but their conclusions are no doubt base(d on observations sufficiently wide to ensure a reasonable (legree of accuracy. Wilcox and Lyttle , in a paper on the chemical composition of the spinal fluid in childhood, give their results in a series of twenty-three normal cases. In the present investigation, fifty cases were examined, a number probabl.v large enough to enable us to form an accurate conception of the condition of the fluid in health. As will be seen from Table 1, the children have beell (livided into eight age groups: the youngest child examined was seven days old, and the oldest twelve years. It will be seen also, that twentv-eight of the fifty cases were children uinder two years of age.