TUBERCULOUS MENINGITIS AND MILIARY TUBERCULOSIS ARRESTED WITH STREPTOMYCIN

Several investigators have shown that streptomycin possesses the ability to suppress a tuberculous process. However, the use of this antibiotic in tuberculous meningitis has resulted in most instances either in failure of response or in an unsatisfactory arrest of the disease, complicated by serious neurologic sequelae. Therefore it seems worth while to report a case of tuberculous meningitis associated with generalized miliary tuberculosis, in which complete clinical arrest followed the use of streptomycin. REPORT OF CASE T. E., a boy aged 9, was admitted to the Willard Parker Hospital on Sept. 1, 1946, with the complaints of fever, headache and vomiting of one week's duration. Two days before admission the child became somewhat disoriented. The past history revealed that in November 1945 the disease of the child was diagnosed as miliary tuberculosis of both lungs. The family history was relevant, since the patient's father died of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1944.