MENINGITIS 



MENNONITES 



135 



i t is ( Gr. meninx, ' a membrane ' ) is the 

 term employed in medicine to designate inflamma- 

 tion of the membranes investing the brain and spinal 

 cord, of which in this relation the innermost the 

 pia-mater is the most important. Far the most 

 frequent form of meningitis in Britain is the 

 tubercular, already described under Hydrocephalus 

 (c|.v.); and, as the main symptoms of other forms 

 are similar, it is unnecessary to repeat them here. 



Epiilemic cerebro-spinal mehitiyitin, or Cerebro- 

 tpiiutl fever. Outbreaks have occurred from time 

 to time during the 19th century in the northern 

 hemisphere, less frequently in the British Islands 

 than in most of the other countries where qualified 

 observers are found, of an epidemic disease affecting 

 cliielly the membranes of the brain and cord. It 

 usually lupins suddenly with fever and violent 

 headache ; vomiting, giddiness, stupor, delirium, 

 and other nervoii.-. symptoms succeed, the most 

 distinctive of which is a peculiar rigidity of the 

 muscles of the neck and back. The disease is 

 extremely variable in seventy ; sometimes it is 

 fatal in less t ban twenty-four bom's ; sometimes so 

 slight as only to confine the patient to lied for a few 

 day.-. The majority lie between these extremes, 

 improvement in favourable cases beginning after a 

 week or two. Convalescence is often very slow. 

 It occurs chiefly in children and young adults. It 

 is not clearly distinguishable from other forms of 

 meningitis except by its mode of occurrence, gener- 

 ally in somewhat localised and limited outbreaks. 

 If contagious, it is only feebly so. Treatment 

 must be conducted on general principles, as no 

 specific is yet known. 



Sim/ill iiiriinii/itis (i.e. not traceable to tnlrcle 

 or to the epidemic form ) is most often caused by 

 injury, but may result from disease of the skull, 

 pyicmia, and other <]i>ca-.' S and bus even been 

 caused by excessive exposure of the head to the sun. 

 It usually begins, unlike the tubercular form, quite 

 suddenly ; and it too is an extremely fatal disease. 

 But the outlook is not quite so hopeless in 



meningitis ; and even ca.-es which appear desperate 

 do sometimes recover. The essentials of treatment 

 are rest and quiet in a darkened room, and little 

 food of the lightest kind. Ice to the head, blister- 

 ing, blood-letting, local or general, and free pur- 

 gation sometimes seem lienelicial. 

 .tlrningoccle. See ENCEPHALOCKI.E. 



M<-ni|)|>ns. a satirist who lived in the first half 

 of tbe M century ii.c., was born a Phoenician slave, 

 and became a Cynic philosopher. His works in 

 Creek have perished, and he is known only through 

 the imitations of Marcus Terentius Varro (q.v. ), 

 wlnisi- own fragments liear the title of Meni/i/H-mi 

 Sniii-i-s. The name was adopted as title for a 

 famous French collection of political satires in prose 

 and vci-e. the N//,-.- Mim/i/n: . which appeared in 

 1594 at the crucial period of the League. 



DIennonltes. a Protestant sect, combining 

 some of the distinctive characteristics of the 

 liaptists and the Quakers. Their piincipal 

 tend i< the administration of baptism only 

 upon confession of faith ; consequently they do 

 not baptise infants. They attach more iinjKirt- 

 ance to the ordering of the Christian life than to 

 doctrinal imints, ranking discipline and rectitude 

 of life before learning and tin: scientific elaliora- 

 tion of dogmas. They refuse to take oaths, to 

 Ix-ar arms, condemn every kind of revenge and 

 divorce (except for adultery), and object to fill 

 civic and state offices, holding all kinds of magis- 

 <> he. necessary for the present, but foreign 

 to the kingdom of Christ. The church is the com- 

 munity of the saints, which must lie kept pure by 

 strict discipline. I i race they hold to l>e designed 

 for all, and their views of the Lord's Supper fall in 



with those of Zwingli ; in its celebration the rite 

 of feet-washing is retained in most congregations. 

 They have bishops, preachers, and deacons. The 

 first congregation to profess these principles was 

 formed at Zurich in 1525 by three men, Grebel, 

 Manz, and Blaurock. Thence the sect spread 

 rapidly through Switzerland and the south of 

 Germany and Austria, establishing itself in 

 greatest strength at St Gall, Augsburg, and 

 Strasburg. But a bitter persecution, in which 

 3000 persons perished, caused many to move into 

 Moravia and into Holland. Contemporaneously 

 with the formation of the Zurich congregation and 

 its first years of propagandism was the appear- 

 ance in Westphalia of the Anabaptists (q.v.), a 

 sect professing some similar views, but guilty of 

 most reprehensible fanatical excesses, in which 

 the Swiss party had no share and with which 

 they showed no sympathy. After the fanatical 

 party had been suppressed, with much shedding 

 of blood, in Mimster, there arose a man of sound 

 piety and great moderation, Menno Simons ( 1492- 

 ir>.">9), who denounced the blasphemous zealots 

 of Westphalia, and organised the scattered members 

 and congregations of the more sober-minded 

 throughout Holland and north Germany. His 

 influence became so paramount that his name has 

 lieen used ever since to designate the sect as a 

 religious body. Dissentions broke out amongst 

 them at a later time both in Switzerland and 

 Holland, chiefly as to the degree of strictness 

 of discipline to l>e enforced. In 1620 the stricter 

 Ammanite or Upland Mennonites separated from 

 the more tolerant Lowland Mennonites in Switzer- 

 land. In Holland the first disruption occurred in 

 15.~>4 ; the more liberal section in North Holland 

 were called Waterlanders, though they exchanged 

 the name of Mennonites for Baptist Com- 

 munities. The advocates for greater strictness 

 showed much want of cohesion, the various parties 

 lieing known by such titles as Old Flemings, 

 I' kewalli.sts, Dompelers, Jan Jacob Christians, 

 Apostoolites, Galenists, &c. All the Dutch 

 Meiinonites were, however, reunited in 1801. At 

 tbe present time they number about 32,000, divided 

 among more than 100 congregations. The German 

 and Swiss Mennonites probably number nearly 

 25,000. In 1783 Catharine of Russia introduced 

 colonies of German Mennonites into south Russia ; 

 others joined them after 1867. But in 1871 at 

 which time they numbered close upon 40,000 the 

 Russian emperor decreed that they should be liable 

 to conscription for the army, and should be deprived 

 of certain others of their privileges. This caused 

 many of them to emigrate to the United States, 

 where they settled principally in Minnesota and 

 Kansas ; others have proceeded of late years to 

 Brazil. But Meunomte refugees from Alsace, 

 the Palatinate, and Holland hail already reached 

 America as early as 1683, in which year the first 

 Mennonite church in the States was organised at 

 Germantown in Pennsylvania. At the present 

 time there are about 100,000 professing this form 

 of religious life in the United States and Canada. 

 The most important groups into which they are 

 divided are known as Old Mennonites, Reformed 

 Mennonites or Herr's People, New Mennonites, 

 Evangelical Mennonites, and Amish or Omish 

 Mennonites, also known as Hookers and as Button- 

 ites. Nearly all Mennonites throughout the world 

 are farmers; for culture, integrity, and philan- 

 thropic enlightenment they stand everywhere high 

 in the regards of their neighbours. 



See Bloupet ten Cate, Oachiedenis der Doopsgezindcn 

 (5 vols. 18JW-47); J. A. Starck, (lenchiclite dcr Taufe tmd 

 dfr Taufyesinntfn (17H9); N. Browne's Life of Minno 

 (I'hila. 18.">:)); [Mrs lirons] Urs/inmi/, Entmekelumj , vnd 

 Schickiale der Taufycsinuten (1884); and Hoop Scheffer 



