The treatment of tuberculous meningitis.

Any review of the treatment of tuberculous meningitis by streptomycin at this stage must be depressing. Human memory is so short that we forget the inevitable and speedy deaths of the years before 1947 and concentrate on the disappointing failures of treatment with streptomycin after 8 or 10 or 14 months of apparent response. It is far too early yet to assess the place of this rather toxic drug in therapeutics. Our limited experience suggests that intrathecal therapy is necessary for at least 6 weeks if even 20 per cent. of the cases are to survive. The great majority of cases survive for long periods, and this feature must also be put to the credit side of streptomycin.