DISEASES OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 323 



naturally the brain partakes in the disturbance, so that the 

 psychic symptoms are very pronounced. 



Causation. This is often obscure, but it may be the 

 result of blows, wounds, ostitis, great heat, extreme cold, 

 etc. 



Symptoms. Intense pain in the head, acuteness of all 

 the senses at first, extreme sensitiveness over the whole 

 body (hypermthesia) perhaps, restlessness, greatly altered 

 expression, mental aberration, passing on to delirium, 

 mania, and finally stupor (coma). 



Diagnosis. This affection is liable to be mistaken for 

 rabies, but there is no need to make such an error. In 

 this disease vomiting is common ; not so in rabies. The 

 temperature is much elevated in most cases of meningitis, 

 but little in rabies ; the voice is high-pitched, the animal 

 snaps, etc., but he does not tear up things about him, or 

 show a tendency to bite other animals; there is not the 

 peculiar bark and howl combined, as in rabies. 



The animal suspected of rabies should never be killed 

 off-hand, as it may be a mere temporary excitement from 

 which he is suffering. It is well to handle all such ani- 

 mals with thick gloves, so that biting may not occur, 

 especially as the imagination of man is so active and can 

 induce false rabies (lyssophobia\ which may end fatally, 



The prognosis in acute meningitis is bad. 



When spinal, there is generally great tenderness over 

 this region, and spasms, or possibly, in the later stages, 

 paralysis which also occur in cerebral meningitis. Squint, 

 alterations in the pupils, etc., are not uncommon. 



Treatment. Counter-irritation to the back of the head 

 and nape of the neck, or, in spinal meningitis, along each 



