A Study of Ten Children after Treatment with Streptomycin for Tuberculous Meningitis

Following the discvery of streptomycn by Waksman (1944) and his collagues, great hopes were entertained that its use in cases of tuberculosis, and especiy of tuberculous meningts, would be followed by results equally dramatic and good as those with penicillin in pyogenic infection in general and the pyogenic meningitides in paticular. These hopes were engendered by the excellent experimental results in guinea-pigs achieved by Feldman and Hinshaw (1944), but the first few reports of cases of tuberculous meningis treated by streptomycin were so discouraging that opinion swung the other way. Of Hinshaw's (1946) first four living cases after relatively short periods of follow-up, one was blind, one deaf, one ataxic, and one was still being treated. Cooke's (1946) patient who recovered was left with ' nervous and mental changes.' Krafchik's (1946) case was apparently well after a very short follow-up.