American Veterinary Review, 
APRIL, 1877. 
ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
ENDEMIC OF CEREBRO-SPINAL-MENINGITIS. 
By PROF. A. LARGE, M. D., M. R. C. V. S. L. 
-:o:- 
The recent endemic of Cerebro-Spinal-Meningitis in the car sta¬ 
bles of Brooklyn is very interesting in a professional point of view; 
and also in settling in my mind one or two points that I have long 
wished to clear up. 
One is the probable period of incubation of the diseases; the oth¬ 
er is the sanitary, or rather the lack of sanitary conditions operative 
in producing this disease. 
But before alluding to these points, I wish to make some remarks 
on—what I consider—th 0,pathology of Cerebro-Spinal-Meningitis. 
As the name would imply, it has been considered, and is still con¬ 
sidered by professional men both in human and veterinary medicine, as 
an inflammatory disease; one marked by well pronounced febrile 
symptoms; some few physicians rank it as belonging to the neurosis or 
functional diseases of the nervous system, without any well-defined or 
constant anatomical characters or post mortem appearances. I must, 
with the greatest respect, take issue with these ideas and differ from 
them, as I have for some years now, although when I first discovered 
and investigated it, and named it in horses years ago, I followed the 
popular idea of inflammation. 
My idea of the disease, and it has grown in strength for several 
years past, as is known to many, is, first we have a blood poison, else 
the disease would not be endemic or epidemic ; that this poison what¬ 
ever it is, and without positively knowing, I shall allude to again 
under the etiology or causation of C. S. M., affects the ganglionic or 
sympathetic system of nerves, and that the train of symptoms, first, 
excitation of the circulation, leading to spasm of muscles, then to 
• paralysis of them in different parts of the body according to mode of 
attack, is due to the loss of the governing power of the circulation, 
namely, more or less complete paralysis from the toxic effect in the 
blood of the sympathetic system ; a condition of vaso motor.-peresis. 
Everything points to it, even in the eye similating somewhat the 
results, as in C. Bernard’s operation of dividing the nerves before or 
behind the Gasserian ganglion the effect produced depending whether 
the sympathetic fibres have been divided or left entire. The 
