Meningitis

Some scientists believe that Hippocrates was known to exist meningitis. Other doctors period, such as Avicenna, most likely knew about the disease. Reports of tuberculous meningitis was made in 1768 the Scottish physician Robert Witt (eng. Robert Whytt) in describing the death of the patient, although the link between meningitis and tuberculosis, and his agent was not identified until the XIX century. Epidemic Meningitis - relatively recent phenomenon. The first documented epidemic occurred in Geneva in 1805. In the following years, several epidemics occurred in Europe and in the United States, the first epidemic in Africa - in 1840. African epidemic increased in XX century, starting with the epidemic in Nigeria and Ghana in the years 1905-1908.

The first article of the bacterial infection as a cause of meningitis was written by the Austrian bacteriology Anton Vaykselbaum (German Anton Weichselbaum), who in 1887 described the meningococcus. At the end of XIX century, were also described many of the clinical signs of meningitis. In Russia the most reliable sign of the disease was first described in 1884 by a physician Obukhovskoy hospital VM Kernigom. He pointed out that «a symptom of knee contractures» is an early sign of brain inflammation shells. Vladimir Bekhterev in 1899 described the tunicary bilge symptom (painful grimace when tapping hammers on the bilge arc). Later, a Polish physician Jozef Brudzinskim described four meningeal symptoms.

In the second half of XX century was established etiological relationship with the disease of influenza viruses A and B, adenovirus, as well as a dedicated agent in 1942, initially considered a virus, and then assigned to a family of bacteria, mycoplasma. Nosological characteristics of acute bacterial meningitis has become a serous possible as a result of clinical and epidemiological studies. The number of viruses pathogenic to humans is extremely high. In 1968, AA Smorodintsev proved that there are more than 200 different viruses and their serotypes.

One of the first forms of viral meningitis was lymphocytic horiomeningit. Armstrong and Lilly in 1934 in an experiment in monkeys showed that this form of meningitis caused by a self-filtering virus. Soon Armstrong and Lilly virus was isolated from cerebrospinal fluid of patients.

In 1953, SN Davidenko described dvuhvolnovoy serous meningitis caused by mites. Syndrome of acute serous meningitis caused by Tick-borne encephalitis virus, another distinguished pioneer illness AG Panov, described the spring-summer encephalitis taiga in 1935.

Prior to the XX century, deaths from meningitis to 90%. In 1906 in horses were obtained antibodies against the causative agents of meningitis, the development of this idea of American Scientists Fleksnerom Simon (Simon Flexner) has significantly reduced deaths from meningitis. In 1944 it was shown that penicillin can be used to treat the disease. At the end of XX century, the use of vaccines against haemophilus sticks resulted in a reduced number of diseases associated with this pathogen in 2002, was predpozheno use steroids to improve the flow of the disease with bacterial meningitis.