CHAPTER XIII 



A ROUND-UP OF UNDESIRABLES 



Meningitis 



THERE is another ball-shaped microbe or 

 coccus closely related to the pneumo- 

 coccus which is responsible for a very serious 

 communicable disease prone to affect children 

 by an inflammation of the covering membrane 

 of the brain and spinal cord. As this mem- 

 brane is called the meninges, the disease is 

 named cerebro-spinal meningitis, and the 

 microbe is called the meningococcus. It is 

 found sometimes in the nose and throat of 

 its victims and their associates. It has been 

 cultivated and carefully studied. Dr. Flexner 

 at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Re- 

 search in New York has secured from horses 

 treated with cultures of the meningococcus 



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