Recent medical journals contain articles embodying the results of the anatomic and bacteriologic studies of a recent epidemic of cerebrospinal meningitis in Boston, by Councilman1 and his associates Mallory and Wright.
These reports furnish important additions to our knowledge concerning this disease, as it occurs in America. This disease has appeared at various times in this country. Thus, it raged in Medfield, Mass., in 1806, extending over the New England States into Canada, Pennsylvania and Maryland, prevailing at some point or other until 1816. This epidemic corresponds to the first period of the history of this disease, according to Hirsch.2 The second period extends from 1837 to 1850, during which time the disease prevailed principally in France. The third period from 1855 to 1875, when the disease prevailed chiefly in Germany; but there were a number of local epidemics in America, one in Illinois, reported by John B.